I always make a habit of fixing all known show-stopping bugs in JBS (especially crashes) before I release a new version as invariably the longer you leave these things the worse they get. So when I released version 3.4 I  patted myself on the back thinking “this is the most solid release yet”. No sooner did I think that than I found a bug in the newly implemented Facebook code that I decided to fix immediately and release (hoping nobody would notice).

I started work on version 4 and then a number of crashes came in (when JBS crashes it lets you send in a crash report that gets sent to me so I can see what went wrong - see right - it’s invaluable). There weren’t a great deal of crashes, but what was interesting was that mostly they were not for the version I’d released but from older versions people were still using - and they were crashes that hadn’t happened before. None of them happened more than 10 times so compared to the number of JBS users out there they’re pretty infrequent - but nevertheless they ticked me off.

So I decided before really getting into version 4 I’d do a bug fix release and call it 3.5 (in the meantime a few bugs did come in for 3.4 so it became well worth doing). One of the other things that’s become clear is that some first-time users can’t work out how to use JBS. Once I explain to them that you pick where your photos are stored, then define which ones to use, then a lightbulb goes off in the head and they understand. So I’ve written a short ‘Quick Start Guide‘ which appears in the knowledge base and in the JBS help file. Hopefully that’ll stop me repeating myself and explaining how to use JBS!

Anyway, I’d recommend any current JBS user upgrades to the latest version so go and download John’s Background Switcher and have a look at the release notes here.

I cobbled together the design for this site a few years ago and had been gradually tweaking it, changing the banner graphics, the colour scheme and such things ever since. When I switched to Wordpress last year I promised myself that when I had a bit of time I’d sit down and create a new design that was more personal to me. That time never materialised so I finally just sat down and did it anyway! If you’re reading this in an RSS reader you might want to visit my site and see it for yourself. Here’s the before and after picture:

I’m no graphic designer by any stretch of the imagination but I thought that rather than pay someone else to do it or use a standard template I’d give it a go myself to see what I could come up with.

One of the first things I wanted to do was widen the main content area of the pages so I could insert bigger photos (which is particularly useful as I’m retrospectively importing all my old photos into the site - more about that another time).

Taking the design of sites like Matt’s and the Web Designer Wall as my inspiration I decided to go down the image-heavy, non-minimalist, non-corporate route (it is the era of broadband after all). At one point I toyed with the idea of a minimalist design like Mark Pilgrim’s but in the end my ego got the better of me and I decided to try to put as many elements of my life in as possible. So here’s an explanation of what I came up with from top to bottom:

• The background picture is this photo of Goatfell which I took on holiday on the Isle Of Arran last year. It is of course in my home country of Scotland!
• The photos at the top are some of my favourites I’ve taken around Yorkshire - the place I’ve lived for the last 9 years (I can’t believe it’s that long) and a wedding photo is hidden in there too (you can just see my right shoe).
• My keyring goes everywhere I do and frankly I’ve never had a better one. 1GB of USB storage, scissors, knife, screwdriver, torch and pen built in? Swiss perfection! Or maybe I’m just a geek…
• Anybody who’s ever worked with me might notice that I never use a notepad - instead I just use bits of paper (invariably torn paper) to scribble on, which is why the design features plenty of torn paper.
• I have a thing about highlighter pens. Whenever I start a new job one of the first things I do is seek out a nice highlighter which I’ll use probably once the whole time I’m there! Hence the hover-over highlighting in the menu bar and the headings on the sidebar (yes, I really did draw a line with a highlighter pen and scan it in, I couldn’t think of a better way).
• Since my eyes aren’t what they used to be I get tired staring at black text on white all the time, so I’ve gone with textured paper for the main background - although I’ve stuck with white on my discussion forum for old time’s sake.
• I’m obsessed with coffee so that’s a picture of a cup of Jamaican Blue Mountain I was drinking yesterday at the bottom of the page - it was delicious!
• Finally, my good lady always complains that I never dust the house. She’s often written my name in dust and I swear I never see it (and conclude that dust is invisible to me). So for her I’ve gone with that grainy, grungy, dusty look, although it looks fine to me!

There are a few other tweaks throughout the site that I won’t go into but I must admit I’m really pleased with the result. Rather than having a plan I just fired up Photoshop and started working away, trying different things to see what worked with this being the eventual result. It took about 5 evenings from start to finish. Hopefully I’ve produced something original and unique that’s specifically tailored to me. And I did it all without resorting to putting a picture of me in it - yes!

Maybe I’ve been spoiled over the years by free software updates on the various iPods I’ve owned but when Apple charged £12.99 for their ‘January Software Update’ on my iPod Touch I was a bit ticked off. Since it included a few new applications I paid the money and subsequently haven’t used any of them at all - a stock ticker, note taker, email client, weather app and mapping application turned out to be completely useless to me as I use my iTouch for playing music 99.9% of the time. Don’t get me wrong though, I still love my iTouch as much as I did when I wrote this article saying how much I loved it.

There’s been a lot of furore over the new App Store where you can actually buy 3rd party applications for your iPhone and iTouch so I thought I’d go and have a look. I’m sure there are some fun games and other interesting things there, but when I plugged in my iTouch I was presented with the following message:

So if I want to even try out some of the free applications I actually have to purchase new software do I? And I’ll bet that if someone buys a brand new iTouch today they’ll get the 2.0 software included for free, just like those bought after the January software update I mentioned above did. No thanks Apple.

Out of curiosity I clicked the ‘Learn More’ button to see how much they were trying to squeeze out of us iTouch and iPhone owners but smiled when I was presented with the following:

Mwa ha ha - serves them right! I’m certain Apple will make a fortune from the myriad applications on the App Store that they’ll be getting a cut of the sale prices from, but it just seems a bit avaricious to me to charge for the software update to run them. So on general principle I won’t be upgrading my iTouch to the 2.0 software and as a result I won’t be trying out any of the no doubt wonderfully pointless applications. Sorry John, but sometimes I have to draw the line somewhere, even with Apple!

We decided to take some of Jamie Oliver’s advice and grow our own strawberries in hanging baskets this year.

We have (or rather my good lady has) been taking good care of them as they’ve grown from little shoots. We kept looking out for little green strawberries to appear and when they did we were counting the days until we could eat them! Unfortunately the local bird population had other ideas so we netted them up after one particularly juicy strawberry disappeared without a trace one day (and my good lady swears she didn’t eat it).

More and more red strawberries looked almost ready for eating and then last night we decided enough was enough - it was time to harvest! As the title suggests, they really do taste sweeter when you grow your own. We’ve bought a few boxes of strawberries lately but they didn’t taste half as nice as the ones we picked - they were delicious!

Of course my good lady’s creative talents with food presentation made them taste even better:

So if you’ve got hanging baskets filled with boring pansies or some other tedious flowers then why not throw them in the bin and plant something you can later eat? That’s my kind of gardening! And if you don’t like strawberries then not to worry, invite me round your house and I’ll eat them for you!