Ever since I installed Adobe Creative Suite I’ve been annoyed by the fact it installs an Acrobat plugin for Safari that overwrites the default Apple Preview view of PDFs. I hate it! It takes ages to start up, it’s generally slow once it’s started, it looks pretty ugly, it has far too many features for what I want in a browser, the list goes on…

However, I’ve just found where the little bugger lives! Just quit Safari, delete /library/Internet Plug-Ins/AdobePDFViewer.plugin, restart Safari and hey presto, it’s gone, fantastic!

I’ve been working for OpenAdvantage since December 2003 and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my time here. Unfortunately the funding has come to an end. So from the end of September I will be out of a job :(.

We had another bid into Advantage West Midlands to continue our work with the National Open Centre, but unfortunately due to the recent change in Prime Minister most public spending has been stopped for re-evaluation. So as far as AWM are concerned there is no money available to fund our project.

This seems like a bit of a shame to me and it looks like all parties concerned are going to end up with egg on their faces. Earlier this year we had a press launch at The House Of Commons where the whole concept was bigged up and people took all the usual pictures etc. It all looked quite promising.

I seem to remember the original funding application being handed in around November last year. Ever since then we’ve been hanging on, waiting to see if we got the money or not. It’s only recently that we’ve been told that there’s definitely no money in the pot for us. I hate the whole funding process, it seems like nobody knows whether they’re coming or going and decisions are made so close to the button.

The latest development is that we might be kept on in the University doing some other job, but gues what…. THAT’S NOT DECIDED EITHER!!! So yet again everyone working here is left wondering what is going on and whether we’re going to have a job at the end of September. Should I start looking for work? I don’t know. I like working here and given the opportunity to stay, I think I would. However, we’re not going to be staying in the same building, which means being shipped off somewhere else and I’m not sure I want to do that. The uncertainty of everything is making morale pretty low here, and I don’t like it.

So, the upshot of it all is that I’m currently looking for work, I think I’d prefer contract work. So, anybody know anywhere I can get some Ruby on Rails development work? I think that’s what I’d like to do. I’ve developed a quite a few internal systems here at OpenAdvantage and am currently working on a Rails based open source CMS.

However, I’ve also done loads of Web development with PHP and Python. Developed sites with Plone, Drupal and Joomla CMSs. Done loads of systems administration/network management with Linux, OS X and Windows. Taught courses in PHP, Plone, Joomla and Drupal. Plus, provided consultancy to many, many local companies on all manner of open source solutions.

Over the past few days a RailsConf I’ve been considering whether it’s better to create an online presence with a pseudonym or my real name. I’ve met two brilliant people over the past few days who I’ve felt a really great connection with, Craig Mackenzie and Dann Tripp. They both publish their blogs under their own, full names. This is something that I’ve always been slightly worried about doing. However, I’ve been thinking over the past few days that perhaps I should do the same.

To be honest I’ve never known what, if anything, I should publish on a blog. Who am I talking to, is this just for me and are people going to think I’m a complete idiot by saying what I’m saying? Whilst I think I’m good at conveying ideas whilst chatting to people (and hopefully I am, it’s kind of what I do for a job) I’m not sure I’m particularly good at putting things in writing. I always seem to spend ages reading over what it is that I’ve written and ending up thinking it’s a load of old cobblers and discarding it. I mean you are publishing, admitidly only potentially, to the whole world and I find that a quite a intimidating thought.

There are plenty of people who do just communicate with the world only using their pseudonym, take for example Why the Lucky Stiff writer, cartoonist, musician, artist, and computer programmer who has built an online and offline name for himself by being immensely creative. Involved with creating free content and learning materials, particularly within the Ruby community.

Then take Ze Frank, who (as far as I can tell from my very limited knowledge) became particularly famous for his How to dance properly piece which he sent to a small number of friends as an invite to his 29th-ish birthday party. Within a week I think more than a million people had viewed his invite.

Since then he’s built an incredible online presence for himself. I suggest you check him out he seems like an incredible person with wonderful insights into life and he’s as funny as fxck. He spoke yesterday evening at RailsConf and talked about his analogy between the current blogging explosion and children drawing on a play school floor, finding their feet and enjoying exploring their ability to express themselves in this new way, although not knowin exactly what they are creating.

Is all this new content good? Of course not, most of it looks rubbish and the information can be disjointed and irrelevant at best. Look at MySpace for really bad examples, but at least people are trying and experimenting with expressing themselves (even if MySpace is the most God awful attrocity the web has ever seen!). Surely a go at generating some content is better than nothing. After all, it could be good.

What I think I might have to do is practice writing for a while, find my feet expressing myself in this form. Perhaps I’ll put my full name to this diatribe of nonsense at some point when I feel comfortable doing so – and want to pimp my ass off! Until then I think I’m simply going to have to be Ant, with my head in the clouds!

BLAH, BLAH, BLAH!!!