Older blog entries for Ausmosis (starting at number 9)

Hoorah! The Northern Territory Supreme Court web site has officially been launched! To have a gander at it, click the following link;

http://www.nt.gov.au/ntsc/

I am pleased to say that all went well during the launch, and I recieved a lot of praise for the work that went into developing the site. Positive comments were recieved by not only the judiciary staff, but also from the legal profession and the general public.

When things go right it always makes things seem worth the time and effort. I think I'll have a few drinks this weekend!! *grin*

Ausmosis

Well its not long to go before the Supreme Court website is launched. Next Wednesday infact!

What I would like is for some people to take a look at the beta version of the [site] and make any suggestions that could and would improve it. Please bear in mind that I had to be quite conservative with this site when it came to graphics. The Judges did not want this site to have bells and whistles. On many occasions I was asked to tone it down a little and even remove some of the images created *sigh*. To best view the site, use I.E. or Netscape in Windows or if you are using Linux, use Galeon or Mozilla. Don't waste your time looking at it with Netscape because the borders around the menus will be out of alignment which is caused by the font issue within Netscape for Linux. I haven't tried it with Netscape 6, so it may be ok. The Virtual Tour will need a java-enabled browser.

Anyway, the main thing is, I hope it's easy to navigate and find what you are looking for. It is aimed for the general public more so than for solicitors or staff, and since most of you probaby have little or no knowledge of the Court system, I would appreciate some feedback from you. You can use the feedback form on the site (which I will recieve) or send me an email:

franck.alcidi@nt.gov.au

Thanks and hope to read some comments soon.

Ausmosis

Just a quick update on the Supreme Court Website. It's now in beta stage and a launch date has been set for 31 January 2001. The date coincides with the opening of legal year. It's envisaged that many Lawyers, Judges, Magistrates and the media will be present for the website launch. I hope it all goes well :)

I have managed to get hold of 4 plasma screens plus 4 LCD screens on loan just for the launch. A huge thank you to Rod Louey-Gung from Integrated Media, firstly for securing the equipment, and secondly for providing it free of charge.

Another huge thank you must go out to the people who have supported me for the last few months whilst I was developing the site. Those people are as follows:

Kevin McShanag
Lyn McDade

Thanks!

Ausmosis

Ok, I messed around with a new scanner I just purchased from Harvey Normans and can finally apply smooth edges (anti-aliasing) to my sketches. I redid my colour GNU -v- Bill Gates sketch. To have a look at it click the link in my previous diary entry below.

It makes a heck of a difference using this new scanner and anti-aliasing on the pics. Thank's to [Sh] for his constructive criticism ;-) All my colour pics should look a whole lot better from now on.

By the way, the scanner I bought is a Canon CanoScan N650U which only cost $199. Not bad if you ask me, and it works very well, except that it doesn't work in Linux (yet). I scan in Windows and then do my work in Linux using GIMP.

Ok I better get back to some drawing. I promised someone I would do a woodcut design for the GNU foundation this weekend.

Ausmosis

I got bored tonight so I did up a quick sketch of GNU -v- Bill Gates :-)

Click [here] to view the pic.

I've been told I should use some anti-aliasing on my pics and I know I should. I just can't figure out how to smooth the edges out after the image has been scanned to a tiff format. Unfortunately it's not my scanner and it's quite old, so I don't know if you can apply antialiasing to a scanned image in GIMP. I have tried using one of the selection tools and when I get the properties up for it, the antialiasing is already checked...hmmm... If anyone can help me on this it would be great!

Ausmosis

Ok folks, just a quick update. I uploaded Hungry Tazz like I said I would in yesterday's diary entry. Go take a look at him. I think he turned out great. Click [here].

The more I use GIMP the more I like it....... I'm a true convert now. My next drawing will be one of Tom & Jerry... Sound good?? I reckon so :-)

Ausmosis

Just finished drawing Bugs the Chef. Used pencil and then coloured him in GIMP. If you want to see click [here].

I have also finished a drawing of Taz who is ready and waiting, mouth opened wide, slobbering everywhere and with a knife and fork in each hand. I'll colour him tomorrow and put him up on the web page, however it just depends on how busy I am doing other stuff as to whether he gets uploaded tomorrow or not.

Tomorrow should be a good day at work. I'm going to be ripping apart about 20 or so computers (old 486's and some early pentiums). Basically I will be stripping them for parts and keep the monitors as spares. The room that all these pc's are in is just full, and i mean FULL, of parts, bits and pieces of computer hardware not to mention shelves loaded with old software. The agency that the gear belongs to are going to dump the lot. Tomorrow I have a chance to salvage some of these old relics. Heck imagine how usefully even some of the old pentiums could be running as a linux server. It's just a shame that some people can't see the value in some of the old stuff still. Oh well....

Actually, I might go and start colouring Taz in GIMP now....Seya!!

Ausmosis

I just finished a 3 day course on ColdFusion which was absolutely tremendous. I didn't realise just how powerful this application was in terms of designing dynamic web pages.

The simplicity of it makes it fun and enjoyable to work with. It has some very advanced features to allow you to create queries within the .cfm files. This makes it a very powerful and useful tool for retrieving information stored in a database.

Although I was working with it in a Windows environment, I have been told it is available for linux from Allaire's home page [click here]

Oh yeah, the presentation of the Supreme Court web site which I did last Friday went extremely well. All the Judges were quite impressed by all the comments I recieved. I just have a few minor modifications to make and if all goes well, the site should be up soon.

Anyway, thats about it for me today. I want to get stuck into my ColdFusion text book that I was given (all 1000 pages of it) so I can gain a better understanding of how it works and what it has to offer. I read up on a few Job Search sites that with ColdFusion knowledge you could earn between 50 - 100k.... Not bad!

Ausmosis

Completion of the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory of Australia web site is very close. Tomorrow I give 9 Judges a presentation and a preview of the site which has taken me 2 1/2months to do. If all goes well, then the site should go live within a week or so :-)

The other day I did something pretty unique. I conducted an interview with a music group called PPK. If you want to take a look at it, click here. The interview was featured on mp3.com as well as a local radio station (KIK FM 91.5) here in Darwin.

I have never done anything like it before and I tend to be fairly shy when it comes to talking with other people, however I can tell you now "It was a buzz!" and it was really cool of the group to even let me do it.

Ausmosis.