I am currently downloading at about 800 k/bits per second which is some of the fastest downloading I’ve done, especially from home over a wifi connection. It’s a broadband connection but using one of the latest wifi cards. 
That’s the current speed
During my second year at university with some friends, we worked on a zombie film where my friend was a director and I was Lighting Camera Operator and editor. As a result of this, we had almost total control of the film and it was a great learning experience. Several weeks were spent preparing the script, finding actors, and testing different types of makeup. As a result of this, I was in a pub dressed as a zombie. The shooting went well and so did the editing but I committed one stupid mistake. I didn’t leave the sound loud enough, as a result of which it’s hard to hear what’s happening. At the time of editing, I had worked in a number of stages from rough cut to cleaner cut to fine cut and sound engineering. At some points, there are eleven tracks of sound to be taken care of. It’s taken several months but I finally have the time to re-work the project. I’ve got the project file in at least one or two places on my iBook and once I get to London I’m going to transfer it over to the Macbook pro. That’s when the fun will start. I’m going to getting al the clips back online and export the video to soundtrack pro and that’s the point at which I will attempt to learn the software well enough to re-work sound once the other stages are finished. I’m looking forward to that stage because both my friend and I have been talking about re-working the sound on that short film for at least a year by now. Finally, I have the time and the resources to get on with it.
Have you ever used a computer so much that it becomes part of your way of life and your person? There are two computers with which I have done this. The first of these was an IBM ThinkPad during the IB and the second was an iBook during my two final years as a BA Media studies student in London. If you look at the keyboard for both these computers you will see telltale signs. One keyboard the joystick mouse was completely worn down from use although the machine was fine. In the second case, the computer has nice wear patterns. The right side of the space bar is worn smooth as is the trackpad that serves as a mouse. All the keys are smoother as well. A slight discoloration of the keyboard took place where my left wrist used to rest. I like it when machines are worn because it gives them character and they have seen you through so many different emotions over time. It’s the reason why, when you use another machine you lose inspiration. This does not apply only to computers though. It also applies to cities. When you’re living between two towns, i.e. London and Geneva you’re going to avoid re-creating an entire universe of friends in the place where you are only passing through. There are a number of reasons for this of which one is the effort to meet those who were friends. Whilst London is about metropolitan activities, bars, restaurants, museums, and such Geneva loses some of the allure it had held whilst I was living in Switzerland. I have felt a great shift whereby I am now in love with the countryside and walk along the paths. I put on my shoes, turn on the iPod and start walking. I walk far. I start striding, rather than walking. I have a large gait as a result of which I make fewer steps but propel myself faster. I leave one village and come to another. I turn my head to the left and I see some trees. Behind these trees, fields and a lake. On the other side of this lake, I see the Mt blanc in all of its glory. I walk further and get to the next village. Here I see two communal halls, four tennis grounds, a football ground, and more fields. In these fields, I find Combine Harvesters and trailers for the crops. I walk and I notice whether the fields are flooded, whether the crops have grown by much. I also smell nature. Has it just rained, is it about to? Are any people coming the other way? At this point, there are a number of choices. I can continue straight on until I hit on the road which means the walk is twice as far, I can turn right and walk along the trees passing by a beehive, or I can walk towards a clump of trees where a fountain stands. On one walk it’s at this walk that a woman was letting her dog rest as it had overheated. I walk upwards, to the foot of the mountains, and then head for home. This is a walk I’ve done for years. I used to do it during the IB years and I still do it now although the path has reversed. I love the walk because it’s the moment when all the ideas are cleared. It’s a moment of solitude, of peace. It’s what I need. In London, there is also a walk I enjoy but there are many more people therefore the peace of mind is not as great. I am one of those people who love to walk fast. I walk whenever I have the chance, whether it is raining, snowing, windy, hot or cold and I get far. It’s so relaxing. You get to see the world and you really get to know the city or countryside where you find yourself. That’s how I got to know a beach resort town in the South West of England. It’s how I got to know the area where I live both in the Swiss countryside and Geneva itself. It’s also how I’m getting to know London. It’s important to know a city on foot because if something happens then you may easily make your way home or to work. You might also notice details that many others have never noticed. More than anything else though it simply gives you a good feeling. I don’t need a gym when I easily walk five to ten kilometers a day.
My university life is officially over now that I got the piece of paper saying that I graduated with an Upper Second class degree. It came in the mail yesterday morning but I read it in the evening.
I’ve just spent at least two hours playing around with drupal. I was working on bit by bit and actually had a case where I had to RTFM. Over the past few hours, I was trying to understand why I couldn’t place the blocks where I wanted. Finally, I found out. I had forgotten to upload the themes folder therefore no content was uploaded. It’s a Content management system, developed so that people may contribute new content without the hassle of uploading HTML files. I’ve used a few but this is the best implementation so far. So far my impressions are good. I’m running version 5.1 of Drupal, the most recent one. It’s got quite a good number of features and looks really flexible so I may have quite a bit of fun with it. At the moment drupal is not available for direct viewing by people visiting my page but as I get it to behave as I want it to I may bring it forward. As a result, I may finally bring my website into the web 2.0 world. It will be database driven from this point forward rather than static pages as it had been till then. I’m happy with it. Time to continue playing with it.
My latest trip of the day has been a walk from Picadilly Circus after dropping by the bank before going along the bank and getting to Bermondsey. It’s a nice walk and luckily I didn’t have too many people to avoid. As I walked by Greenpark it started to drizzle a little but it didn’t do much so I continued my root. I got towards the Parliament Tesco, bought two cokes, and continued on my journey. The usual sights were there but the street performers lacked an audience. The classical musicians under one arch had no audience. Practice I suppose. The interesting part of the walk is between Tower bridge and Bermondsey because you pass by the Thames walk and it feels less public. You see a small bridge which I think can be raised and upon this bridge a group of friends being photographed by a self-timed camera. I waited for the picture was taken before continuing on my journey. It’s not a bad part of London from what I glimpsed briefly. The sardine express tube carriages were full due to a security alert encouraging delays on the line. I was in no rush so I sat down and watched as train after train filled with people passed. After a while, I got tired of waiting and caught the tube to Green Park and walked a little further. I passed by Covent Garden where Charlie Chaplin the second was performing, getting a child to throw him coloured plastic bricks. I didn’t stay for the rest of the trick. The time I took was useful because by the time I went back down to the tube it was empty once more and I could return home in relative comfort. I’m tired now, and my laptop is apparently in Eindhoven in Holland waiting to be transferred to Switzerland. On the 6th I should have another status report. I really want it now, want to play with DVD studio pro and make a good quality DVD.
If that’s true then my MBP is waiting for me in Switzerland but I’m stuck in London for another week before i can go back and get it. Tonight I’ll find out whether a note was left by the delivery company and soon I’ll start up the computer for the first time. I’m looking forward to that. Once it’s home it’s home and the suspense is no longer there.
On Saturday morning at around 2am part of the university was affected by fires, apparently from gas cannisters. I haven’t visited the location since hearing the news. There have been two fires. One early on Saturday and the second on Sunday. Both these fires were affecting the J block, journalism block. The cause is not revealed yet but there is this message on the uni website: The areas affected at the Campus are the undergraduate and school offices, art and design studios, video edit and photo facilities, photo science labs, ceramics studios and workshops, the fashion area, the newsroom, animation, graphic information design, music and informatics and illustration. I’m hoping that the damage is not too bad. I hope that no final year student work yet to be assessed has been damaged and that none of the equipment has been damaged. [more](Finished studying at this uni a little over a month ago and twice hit by fire. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6259814.stm) info
Today is a great day for a number of reasons. The first of these is that I woke up early, which means I slept enough. The second of these is that I dropped into university and was sad to see all those empty bedrooms, which shows there are some good memories from halls. The key to today was getting my dissertation grade. That’s the reason I dropped by the uni. Tired of the anxiety and worry of grade results I heard from a friend that the results were there. I went and checked my grade and in the process saw quite a few others. One friend I traveled with got a 70 so I’m really happy for him, this being the top grade out of those I looked at. I found that I was in agreement with the feedback I got, mainly that I should have concentrated more on the socio-economic side. Part of the reason I didn’t was that it was hard to find data on this topic. If I did the exercise again I would work harder on doing better. Another good piece of news is the following. My MacBook Pro and the software I ordered have been shipped and they should arrive around the 11th of June. I’m really happy and looking forward to this. It means I have a new toy professional tool to play study with. I dropped by the apple store and took advantage of the wifi at the apple store for a few instants and did the geek thing, watching a mediocre presentation of Imovie. I think I’ll try to get to one or two more advanced shows, see what secrets I can pick up in the process.
Today I’ve spent time looking at the website earnings and I’ve seen that with just a few minutes of work I’ve doubled the earnings from my website. I’m not going into the details at the moment but since I seem to be doing nothing productive I’m going to re-work my website to increase my earnings. Four hundred and sixty visitors passthrough this website with about a million six hundred hits of which most visitors, through search engines get straight to the page they want. What I need to do over the next few days is making sure that there is advertising on most of the pages. in so doing I increase the opportunity for people to click through and find more relevant content on someone else’s web page. I need to write more articles, rather than blog posts. Blog posts are a lazy method of web mastering because they require no real effort. Find an idea, write about it, post it. At least when you create a page you think about the content. I’ll start by writing a section about a variety of podcasts I’ve enjoyed over the past two years and hope that what I write will be appreciated by others. Through this process I will be targeting a specific audience, trying to create relevant content and as a result get more visitors. When working on the Roman section of this website I ran out of knowledge, therefore, the speed at which I added content plummeted. There is one page that I’m proud of from the time. It’s the one on Slavery. I spent several hours doing research, writing notes, and then uploading this page to the website. As a result of the quality of content universities and a number of other reputable websites linked to my own. That’s what I plan to do with the new sections I will add on podcasts I enjoy listening to and why. It’s going to take a few days to generate this new section but since I’m between studies and work it’s one way of attempting to get a small secondary income. We’ll see how it goes.