I’ve started in a new job!

I’m now employed by Kongsberg Protech as a “project engineer” and I’m looking forward to try out life as a regular employee, compared to being self-employed which I’ve been the last three years. I’ll be working in parallel with school until the summer when I graduate, after which I’ll be working full-time. Looks great so far !

My bachelor assignment

We are developing a quadcopter (helicopter with four propellers). We’re making a steady progress and it’s a very interesting project on my behalf as I’m responsible for developing the software for the micro controller  which will get input from a radio controller, an accelerometer and a gyroscope and then perform a shitload of regulations to finally control the engines. The main goals are to make it stable, easy to fly and ready for add-ons such as cameras etc.

Here’s our webpage if you’re interested in checking out further what’s it all about.

To come

• I’m currently reading “PHP 5 Social Networking” which I was asked to review. It looks interesting so far and I’ll write more about it soon.
• I’ve also got a few other projects and posts just idling and I’ll very soon get around to finish those.

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Stevie Ray Vaughan (1954 – 1990)

Stevie (SRV)  is my personal favourite musician and guitar-player – no doubt. He has an amazing energy (watch any concert) and is a true maestro on the guitar besides being a good song-writer and a descent singer. The genre of choice was mainly electric blues, and few others have made such an impact on the genre as he has. He was again inspired by artists such as Jimi Hendrix and Albert King. SRV Died as a result of a tragic helicopter accident on October 3, 1990.

Recommended treats – (Album in parenthesis)

• Pride and joy (Texas Flood)
• Love struck baby (Texas Flood)
• Wham (The Sky is Crying)
• Rude mood (Texas Flood)
• Come on pt 3 (Soul to soul) ( Jimi Hendrix – Come on pt 1, Earl King- Come on)
• Life by the drop (The Sky is Crying)  - A cover originally by Doyle Bramhall and Barbara Logan – about Doyle and Stevies friendship
• MTV Unplugged – Rude Mood, Pride and Joy and Testify

Marius Müller (1958 – 1999)

One of the greatest Norwegian musicians and guitarists that I know of. He is greatly underrated as far as I feel, partly because he’s commercially only remembered for the songs “Den du veit” and “Carmen“, whereas “Den du veit” is an easygoing rock-tune and Carmen is a ballad although with some beautiful guitar-parts.

Marius died as a result of feeling ill while driving.

Check him out at Spotify or buy a CD or three.

Recommended treats

• My town (The Big Beat)
• Your blues (Plugged!)
• Soul of a man (Big / Plugged!)
• Sunburst Shuffle (Seks)
• Ikke tru et ord (Marius Müller) – Norwegian Thin Lizzy-cover

David Gilmour (1946 – 2009-and-counting)

While perhaps not the most technically skilled guitarists, he has an distinct style and adds a heck of a lot of attitude and feelings to his compositions which never fails to impress me. Adding this to his eminent songwriting-skills – it just gives me the goosebumps. Every time. His best work is together with Pink Floyd, but he do have a lot worth listening to when it comes to his solo-albums as well.

Recommended treats

• Pink Floyd – Shine on you crazy diamond (Dark Side Of The Moon)
• Pink Floyd – Comfortably Numb (The Wall)
• Pink Floyd – Time (Dark Side Of The Moon)
• Pink Floyd – Lost for words (The Division Bell)
• Pink Floyd – Coming back to life (The Division Bell)

But there are more – lots more

There are many great guitarists out there, no doubt. Some other personal favourites worth mentioning are Don Felder of The Eagles (used to be, at least); Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits (ah, Brothers in arms – beautiful!); Nils Lofgren of the E-street band and Crazy Horse – but I admire him the most for his solo-work (check out his “Acoustic Live”); and of course Øystein Sunde.

Everyone mentioned here could of course fill a bunch of posts each and every one, but as I like to keep it short and simple I’ll let the clips “speak” for them selves .

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Now, this doesn’t mean that every single page on the web should be 100% identical for everyone, but more like: Relevant information ought to be available and easily accessible by those who need and/or want it, regardless of disabilities. So in my view, it is important to separate the thought of content and functionality on the web.  And as well, in these days of the ever-increasing amount of web-applications this has got to be taken into account. As I’ll discuss further in a soon-to-come post there are some things to take into consideration whether the “website” actually is a website, or a web-application. In short: every web-application doesn’t necessarily have to be accessible to everyone, regardless of platform, disability etc, while most of the websites does have to be so.

There is a common misunderstanding that idea of the open web mean that every piece of content, associated with every bit of fancy functionality ought to be done in such a way that everyone – regardless if they’re using IE 5, some old Netscape or even Lynx -should be able to enjoy both the content and the functionality.

How I/to do it

When I create a website for any company, I do make sure that all of their public content is accessible – this mean that the webpages are neatly marked up in as meaningful markup as possible, as while as making sure my stylesheets as looking fancy for the waste majority of users, and using javascript just to enchance the experience for those of them who support/enable it. This way it will be accessible for those using supporting UA’s (ie. those with reduced sight) and also degrades nicely for those with older browsers – or for some other reasons doesn’t fully support CSS and/or JavaScript).

This is not anything new for anyone who’ve heard for web-standards, semantic markup and progressive enhancement – which in turn will make sure of graceful degradation.

I know there are those out there who will shoot me for not saying that 100% ought to be accessible to everyone, but as we live in a real world – we have to make real decisions to make real business.

Related posts:

• Usability-tips for your application (Part I)

Now it’s time to focus on my jobs and private projects – beside enjoying at least some days off  - this summer.

Note to self, projects to get further during this summer:

• kidlock – a computer-lock for worried fathers, with a pedagogical twist
• oppetider.no
• mydemoground.com
• MioNoid – My Arkanoid-creation, for practicing my game-development skills

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I’ll continue my degree in Kongsberg, as well as Kristin will continue hers in Oslo. That’s what will be the great thing about Drammen. A little longer distance to school for both of us, but that’s the price I’m willing to pay.

I do now have approximately 2 minutes of walking to get to the train-station – and I’m now trying to travel by train for a month, to see how that works out.

Well, that’s it for now.

Related posts:

• New job, quadcopter and more