James' Repository -

I gots a new camera!

By James on April 16, 2012
This entry is filed under Hobbies and tagged camera, d3000, dlsr, nikon, pictures. | 2 Comments

After wanting one for a while, but deciding they were too expensive, I then got to play with @RebekahEmse‘s DSLR the other weekend, this made my mind up, I had to have one.

To please @Bonxy

So I got the Nikon D3000, its a few years old now, 2009 I think, but I didn’t fancy paying too much, I managed to get this for £310 from Argos. There’s lots to figure out, and i’m only just getting the hang of it after a few days, still loads to learn. I’ve mainly been playing with the shutter speed, seeing what happens, when not doing that I’ve got it happily in auto mode :p

Gym

By James on March 30, 2012
This entry is filed under Hobbies and tagged gym, hobbies. | Leave a Comment

Having just started to go to the gym, i thought i’d make a quick post to say what kind of distances/times i’m currently achieving, then I can look back in a month or two to see if i’m improving.

Treadmill:

I can happily run/jog for 15 mins at about 11Kph.

My aim is to increase the speed and more importantly the time. I’m not really sure what a ‘good’ pace and time is tbh.

Currently I do a walk/run warm up on the treadmill for 15 mins, followed by 15 mins on the Cross Trainer, followed by another 15 mins on a bike. Then I spend about 20-30 mins doing weights, ‘leg press’ things (haven’t a clue what you call them things.) Finally I go back to the treadmill for a 15 minute jog/run.

Image Overlay CSS

By James on March 5, 2012
This entry is filed under Code and tagged code, css, html, image. | Leave a Comment

My friend wanted a simple way of overlaying an image (or text) on an image, ideally using CSS. After a quick google I found a nice looking example of what he was after. Juts going to post it here so I have it for future reference.

HTML:

<div class="image">
 <img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7151/6707334701_af50daf3c5.jpg"/>
 <h2><span>Roseberry Topping</span></h2>
</div>

CSS:

.image {
 position: relative;
 width: 100%; /* for IE 6 */
}

h2 {
 position: absolute;
 top: 200px;
 left: 0;
 width: 100%;
}

h2 span {
 color: white;
 font: bold 24px/45px Helvetica, Sans-Serif;
 letter-spacing: -1px;
 background: rgb(0, 0, 0); /* fallback color */
 background: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.7);
 padding: 10px;
}

Demo: http://imjam.es/sam/test.html
Source: http://css-tricks.com/text-blocks-over-image/

Ice Skating…

By James on February 5, 2012
This entry is filed under Hobbies and tagged bonxy, hobbies, ice skating. | 1 Comment

… I can not ice skate for toffee. I knew this, as it is one of the many activities that require balance and coordination, something that I am lacking. Ice Skating can be added to the list of thing I’m just not designed todo;

Roller Blading
Skate Boarding
and now Ice Skating

Me trying to ice skate

(Me attempting to Ice Skate (right) while holding onto Mikey for dear life.)

@Bonxy, @RebekahEsme, Mikey and I all went ice skating today, well I tried, it wasn’t too bad, I didn’t fall over and I did manage at least one lap without holding on to someones arm. So maybe, maybe after a few more goes I might start to enjoy it and not be shown up by all the little kids who are 100x better than me (show offs).

Skyrim

By James on January 24, 2012
This entry is filed under Hobbies and tagged achievements, games, skyrim, xbox. | 3 Comments

I got Skyrim for Christmas, and I’ve played it pretty much each day since then :p. My total play time is about 65 hours, this averages about 2-2.5 hours a day. I’d say its pretty much the best single player game I’ve played, past favorites included, Halo/Halo 2 and GTA:IV.

I’ve completed the main quests, so now my plan is to unlock all of the achievements, I have around 14 out of the 50 to get, some are quite easy, but the majority are going to be time consuming.