Each year since then has been so different it’s almost unbelievable. That second year of university I lived with my two best friends from University, and we did little else but go to university, church, cell group, and mess around and have fun. It was the year that I got to know Jay, and met the two Sarah’s, all of whom ended up being my housemates two years later. It was the year I first started playing around with Cisco networking equipment, and then had my first ever telephone interview, assessment day, and successful job application! Dan also got offered a job, and we found a house in Reading. I was still in the University Big Band, and there was a cute girl in my cell group who caught my eye towards the end of the year…

Then in the summer I started going out with my beautiful girlfriend (now fiancée), and Dan, Kita and I moved to Reading, and we started real work! That year was totally different again, living with a new person, cycling to a workplace every day and working 9 – 5 rather than the usual sporadic university hours. I really enjoyed my placement year at Cisco, and I definitely had a great first year with Annie, even if the distance was very annoying. I know that as Dan and I neared the end of our work placements were both looking forward to the final year of university… as well as Dan and Kita’s wedding! My first wedding, and my first experience of being a best man. Very exciting times.

Final year, again, was totally different! I was living just down the road from Annie, with three people I’d never lived with before, all of us in our final year of university. The work-load had stepped up and I hardly saw my best friend any more (he was living further away with his wife, it was odd not to see them both every day). Some of my other friends from my second year of uni had graduated last year and moved back home, so it was sad for them not to be around when I got back to Portsmouth, but a lot of my coursemates had done a placement year too so it was great to be back with them. Though we all focused hard, put a lot of effort into our work and our final year projects, as well as looking for a job!

I applied for only two jobs, both at Cisco, and a recruitment agency phoned me about the job that I ended up taking. I did get through the Cisco telephone interviews and to the assessment days, but the job at Ocado was too good an offer to pass up and I am certain that I made the right decision. I now live in North London, and have a brilliant job with good colleagues. There are downsides, however. Annie now lives 100 miles away, and although I see her every weekend, we were used to living just down the road from each other. However, she still said yes when I proposed to her in October, and when we get married in September I am going to the happiest guy on this planet.

I miss my old coursemates though. We all moved away around the end of June, and although it was good to see them at graduation (and my other group of friends at Christmas) I miss not seeing them regularly, especially my best man! We really do need to keep in contact, but we’re all busy with work and life and it’s just hard.

We’ve all come along away in a few years, from fresh-faced university students to working guys, earning our living and (some of us) living away from home. I can’t wait to see what the rest of our lives has planned for us… I’m looking forward to it! Bring it on.

I see Your face in every sunrise
The colors of the morning are inside Your eyes
The world awakens in the light of the day
I look up to the sky and say
You’re beautiful

I see Your power in the moonlit night
Where planets are in motion and galaxies are bright
We are amazed in the light of the stars
It’s all proclaiming who You are
You’re beautiful, You’re beautiful

I see you there hanging on a tree
You bled and then you died and then you rose again for me
Now you are sitting on Your heavenly throne
Soon we will be coming home
You’re beautiful, you’re beautiful

When we arrive at eternity’s shore
Where death is just a memory and tears are no more
We’ll enter in as the wedding bells ring
Your bride will come together and we’ll sing
You’re beautiful, You’re beautiful, You’re beautiful

Firstly, the iPad. I don’t think I need to talk about what it is, what it can do, it’s good points, it’s bad points, etc… as you must have been living in a cave to not know about it. Mine was dispatched on Saturday, so I’m waiting for it to turn up at some point this week. Quite excited really!

Secondly, Annie, myself and my parents went up to North London on Saturday to look for a new place for me to live when I start work next month (as mentioned in my last post). We looked round five places, and settled on the one shown in the four pictures below. It comes unfurnished, so Annie and I are going to have great fun shopping around to turn the flat into a home!

On the one hand, it’s going to be good to no longer attend University. I won’t have to worry about exams, or coursework, or working on the weekend; instead I’ll have to worry about real work during the day. I can relax at the weekend and in the evenings! It’s going to be good. But, moving on means moving away. I’ve landed myself a job at Ocado (yes, the grocery delivery company; no, I’m not driving a van) as a Network Engineer, working in Hertfordshire. I’m going to have to move up there, and that will mean moving away from my friends and my life here in Portsmouth – which is not going to be fun. I’ll miss everything and everyone down here.

However, these past couple of months have been spent working hard at University to complete my final year project. The project has involved designing and developing a Network Testbed Monitoring and Management tool for the ECATS team at Cisco, the department I worked for last year. It’s been fun, and at the moment I’m just finalising my (30,000+ words) final report. We have to present the project on Project Day, the 4th June, to all and sundry who come to look round. Below is a screenshot of one of the modules in the application that I’ve developed.

This was really just a quick post to update you all on my current status in life…. I realise that I haven’t blogged in a very long time (in fact, this is my first blog post of 2010, happy new year everyone!).

My day to day work is done on a Mac, and therefore that automatically rules out Internet Explorer. I can’t say I’m too upset about that – on any installation of Windows, the first thing I do is download a more capable browser if there isn’t one already installed. However, on my Mac, I have a multitude of browsers to choose from. As the image above shows, I currently have installed 5 – Chrome, Safari (obviously, as it comes preinstalled on OS X), Firefox, Camino and Opera. I use them primarily in that order.

Google Chrome

Chrome is now my primary browser. It’s set as default, and I’m using it now to write this post. This is a very recent addition to my browser arsenal, as it has only just been released for the Mac. However, since its release last year, I have used it almost exclusively on my Windows laptop, and I was pleased to see it finally come to Mac. I never did get around to installing Chromium – so a native app direct from Google seemed much easier.

There main reason I use Chrome primarily is speed. I don’t care what Apple say about Safari being the fastest browser – my installation of it certainly wouldn’t. It would lag when loading large Javascript-heavy pages, or lock up altogether when opening a new tab (and triggering Top Sites). Chrome, however, opens in a flash, new tabs appear in an instance, and it can handle an impressive amount of Javascript without blinking. Google Wave, especially, always threw Safari off balance, but Chrome breezes through.

Another not insignificant reason I use it the Webkit rendering engine. To my mind, it is by far the most superior engine around – and I love the advanced CSS it is able to support. I know Safari also uses Webkit, but for reasons mentioned above, I prefer Chrome. The built in web-inspector comes in very handy – and to me, is a brilliant alternative to Firebug.

Safari

Safari is my second choice browser. It’s native on the Mac, and therefore integrates perfectly. It’s use of the Webkit rendering engine makes it one of the most advanced browsers out there – but for me, Chrome just tops it with speed.

Firefox

Firefox is also a brilliant browser. After Chrome, it is my choice of Windows-based browsers, but on the Mac I mainly have it installed purely for testing purposes. It’s Gecko-based engine provides some advanced CSS features, but not as many as Webkit. One of it’s major plus points is the extensions available – amazing functionality can be added to the core browser, and I wish Safari/Chrome would follow Mozilla’s example.

Camino

As Camino used to state on their website, this browser provides the power of Firefox with the OS X integration of Safari. This browser is fast, there’s no doubt about it – it’s very lightweight, and loads in seconds. I’ve found that it’s also the most capable browser for heavy-duty Flash, shining where the other browsers seem to flag. It uses Mozilla’s Gecko engine, but is designed to integrate better with OS X. This is the only browser in this list that’s Mac-only. As I mentioned just now, I purely use it for heavy Flash sites.

Opera

Opera is also a very advanced browser. It’s one of the oldest, and can handle some CSS features that no other browser can. However, I use it mainly just for testing – I couldn’t get along with it when I tried to use it daily. There’s just something about the interface that bugs me.

Well, they’re the browsers that I have installed and use regularly. If you know of any other obscure browsers I’d be interested in having a look at them.

In the end, for me, nothing can beat the Webkit rendering engine – so it’s got to be Chrome or Safari. Hands down.

The final year has been quite interesting so far. There’s only two lectures a week that I really don’t look forward to, which I think is pretty good going really. Work load is fairly heavy, and there’s a fair amount of reading to do for a couple of units, but I’m managing so far. Hopefully I won’t end up neglecting other parts of my life in favour of work!

I have more exciting news regarding holidays! I know that Annie and I have already been to New York and Salcombe (though I didn’t blog about it) this year, but we’re now going to Paris in December! It’s going to be soooo exciting. Paris at Christmas… well cool! The Eiffel Tower in Christmas lights… woo!

My alphabet series on Flickr is going quite well… I’ve reached N! My latest photo is below:

Check out the full set on Flickr.

The rest of this post is probably just going to be a few short sentences… so skip over them if they don’t interest you!

I now have Google Wave, so if you want to chat add me on my usual address!

I’ve also been using Windows 7 on my laptop… it’s quite neat so far – a big improvement on Vista! And again, on the OS front, I’ve updated my Mac to Snow Leopard – there have been a few speed improvements, and Expose works better now; but other than that, there are no major changes. I do like the new completely chromeless player window for QuickTime though!

I found this really cool infographic showing 50 years of space exploration (via @Hicksdesign):

The new Apple Magic Mouse looks really cool – the world’s first multi-touch mouse! But for £55 at the Apple store it’s a bit too steep…

Final Year Project definitions have to be in soon – crazy. That will define 10 whole weeks of my life!

Anyway, sorry for the complete randomness of this blog post. Just felt like it!

Saying that speech was one of the most nerve-racking experiences of my life! I’d have been fine if it wasn’t something I had written, and there wasn’t any pressure to make it funny. In the end, though, it appeared to go down well, so that was good! People certainly laughed, and clapped… so I guess I did my job well.

The photographer that they had hired was Owen Roseblade, and the way he worked was brilliant. I can’t wait to see the photos he took! There are a few on his website, available here, use the arrows on the photo to scroll through. They’re simply amazing.

I had a great time with Annie too. She looked beautiful, easily the best looking girl there (with the exception of the bride, of course!), and I’m so lucky that she’s mine :)

Going back to university soon – I can’t believe the summer’s almost over already! But at least I have a holiday to look forward to before university actually starts :)