Setting up my Canon IP1000 printer in Ubuntu, was actually quicker and easier then in Windows i.e. no restarting your OS!

This guy generously worked on and packaged up various sets of drivers for Canon and Epson printers for use in Ubuntu and Debian. Check it out: http://mambo.kuhp.kyoto-u.ac.jp/~takushi/

There are also a clear set of instructions over on the Ubuntu Forums too, which is where I originally found this.

In the process of applying for an Internet merchant account, I was required to publish various details and documents on my business web site - which is fair enough. This led to me re-doing the whole site, including a bit of rebranding and changing my mission/goals as a business. Personally, I think it’s come out quite well: AKB Web Services V2.0

Note the 2.0 has no relevant to the ‘Web 2.0′ buzzword, it’s just the second version of the site.

This was the first time in a long time, I had, had a chance to do a site from the ground up, without a designer involved.. so I got to experiment a bit with the modern/professional theme - simplicity, lots of space, etc. (Note, I am not a graphics designer lol).

Anyway a few things that I used: Complete Set of Faux Column CSS Layouts, SXSW Panel: Business side of web design and the Web 2.0 Directory (for getting idea’s).

It still needs a lot of work - mainly functionality for order forms and so on, but I’ll be proud now (rightly or wrongly) of having visitors to the site.. Yay..

Ran into some issues getting my external monitor to work and to have the notebook’s display not to. A solution can be found on the Unofficial Wiki for the ATI Linux Driver .

The wiki is actually a very good resource for running ATI proprietry drivers in all Linux flavors, so check it out if you are having problems!

Came across a little bug in some of my code written a few years ago, after the server was upgraded to the PHP5 series, Brief details below:
In PHP 4.3.9:

<?php
date("F", mktime(0,0,0,1, 1, 1, 1));
// output: January
?>

In PHP 5.2.1:

<?php
date("F", mktime(0,0,0,1, 1, 1, 1));
// output: December
?>

This isn’t the exact code, so the logic of such a call won’t make much sense, but obviously, I was asking for it, with the bad assumptions. A quick work around was simply:

<?php
date("F", mktime(1,0,0,1, 1, 1, 1));
// output: January
?>