Scattered lines

I’ve not bought any books for ages. In part this is due to the fact that since I ‘stopped’ a couple of years ago, my concentration span has been appalling, and trying to read a book proved to be a chore that I couldn’t climb over. I’ve noticed though that just recently I have been picking up a book or two more, and actually managing to read it. No biggie I know, but for me, in comparison to how I was say a year ago, it’s quite a step. I actually read Marnie by Hitchcock recently. So today, with some money I was given last week, I bought some books.

Peter Cook: A Biography. I borrowed this from a friend a few years ago, and I want to read it again. It is hilarious yet underneath a deeply sad story. It’s one of the few books that I think has affected me.

Spike Milligan: The Biography Very funny bloke – did you read that he got his last wish recently ? He took the same meds as me … shame I’m not as funny !

a million little pieces From the blurb on the back “frey really can write, brilliantly, and if you don’t think so, f*** you” – Evening Standard. It’s biographical.

Al Qaeda and what it means to be modern Blurb “An immensely thought-provoking piece of work” – Observer.

And, just for relaxation ….
Cascading Style Sheets – The Definitive Guide. This wasn’t actually the one I wanted, but it was all they had, and I know it covers more than I need/want to know. CSS is about the one subject I’ve never bought a book on, and although I’ll maybe get the other Eric Meyer book I was after, it’ll be interesting to read anyway.

So that’s my reading for a while !

A couple of browser bits: http://www.yourhtmlsource.com has some really useful bookmarklets. A couple don’t seem to work in Firefox, but others, like Validation etc are really neat.
I use the ‘editCSS’ function in Firefox a lot – hugely in fact – but just recently, I lost some functionality. Either it wouldn’t work, or it would remove part of the display – usually the part I wanted to play with. So last night I installed the ‘Web Developers Bar’. It’s got waaaay more in it that I need, but there are more functions that will prove useful, and so far any displays I’ve worked on haven’t been distorted by invoking it. Useful.

My PA is now 8mm 😀

And today I’m planning on playing with the latest versions of Gaim, the GIMP and a bit-torrent client called Azureus. Not used bit-torrent before, so I hope the learning curve isn’t too steep.