_{Jamie Balfour's}Personal blog

I'm very happy to say that JBlogs has finally got a new name that I of course like. BalfBlog is the same product but it's just got a new name. I hope you all like the name. I will put an updated version up as soon as it's ready.

My collection of projects for the web designed for my own website and designed to be easy to use elsewhere too, is currently known as my Web Neutral project. It will continue to use this name but with the prefix Balf in front of it.

My Web Neutral project currently consists of:

• JBlogs (my blogging system)
• JBBar (my jQuery dropdown menu plugin)
• JBSlider (my jQuery slideshow plugin)
• JBPopup (my jQuery popup plugin)
• JBRibbon (my jQuery ribbon tab plugin)

Currently all of these start with my initials: JB. All of these will be renamed to drop this prefix in favour of my nickname from school; Balf. So: JBlogs becomes BalfBlog, JBBar becomes BalfBar, JBSlider becomes BalfSlider, JBPopup becomes BalfPopup, JBRibbon becomes BalfRibbon.

I will begin changing these soon, since many of them will affect several places on my own website even. 

I am also adding this post under a new category on my blog called Web Neutral Project where you can find information about these web projects.

I'm selling a few things to try and get funds for my teacher training course (which I need to pay for) and sell some things I no longer use:

• A Dell S2340T touchscreen monitor (Review)
• An Asus PA238Q LCD IPS monitor (Review)
• A Fujitsu Lifebook Convertible tablet T4410 (Review) and docking station
• A Limited Edition Zelda A Link Between Worlds 3DS

To discuss some prices, get in touch with me. 

Here is another of my summaries of the year things that I do at the end of the year. I always find it sad saying goodbye to another year and here we are saying goodbye to 2015 and hello to 2016.

I write these posts every year, probably just because I'm sentimental and enjoying doing this.

Last meal I ate: Smoked salmon sandwich

Last thing I had to drink with a meal: Shloer White Grape, Raspberry & Cranberry

Last place I went out to eat: Goblin Ha'

Last film I watched: Quantum of Solace

Last game I played: Minecraft

Last song I listened to: Out Here - Pendulum

Last person I have sent a text to: My mum

Last friend I have spoken to in person: Nick Thompson

Last TV programme I have watched: Scotland's Hogmanay Live

Last major purchase for myself: Asus Transformer Book TF100TAF

I've had a great year in 2015 and I'm hoping 2016 will also be a brilliant year.

I wish you all the best and a happy new year for 2016!

2015 was generally a really good year for me.

First of all, third year of university, I managed to get 6 Bs and 2 As, which is good enough for me and I achieved an average of 67% (if this average continued I'd be en route for a second class honours, although a first-class honours is not impossible either).

My fourth year at university started out good, and I got several good marks back; 86% for one coursework, 74% (part one of my dissertation) for another and then 70% for another. The rest of my courses seem to have gone well too, so we'll see what happens with them. 

This year, I was also formally asked if I wanted to become a lab helper in one of my favourite courses involving one of my favourite aspects of computer science in a course called Web design and Databases. I've always wanted to be a lab helper, so this is a great opportunity for me.

On top of this, I finally got the opportunity to work in school as a teacher as part of one of my university courses. This has been one of, if not the, greatest experiences of my life. I am thoroughly enjoying this. 

As a result of one of the courses I did in this year of university, I also improved my own programming language, finally bringing an end to BlackRabbit Script and replacing it with my new Zenith Language. Most of my free time this year has been spent on the Zenith Parsing Engine (or Zengin) and now it has become one of the most, if not the most, important projects I work on now. In March I started ZPE and then it was restarted in May with a proper compiler. 

In terms of my website, I would say it has been at it's best since I started. This year I focused on reducing the size of my JavaScript files and CSS files and I managed to reduce over 30KB of data. On top of that, I managed to reduce the amount of HTML produced on mobile devices using a PHP library called Mobile Detect. I also finally made the decision to stop tweaking the design of my website in September after I changed the sidebar. The vast majority of the website has remained consistent since then. One major change did happen after that, however, with the change from my inconsistent curved style to a much flatter design. One example of this is what I call my pill inputs:

The new 'pills' design that came to my website was all about creating a flatter look.

2015 was also a very successful year for my website. Across the whole year, 1,940 users have visited my website and over 40,000 pages have been visited. Of all visitors, 1,940 of the pages visited are also by new visitors. As well as this, Zengin has been downloaded some 500 times since May!

My tutorials featured on my website also got recognised by the online tutorial maker Udemy. They claimed to really like my website and the tutorials that I have written.

I also brought my own menu to my website, called JBBar, a free and open-source menu bar that can be downloaded from my website. This replaces the jQuery Smartmenus menu that came with a lot of extra baggage. 

As well as this, I created my first website for a business, which went very smoothly and has been named very 'innovative' by many. In fact, I'm so proud of that website that it also backwards inspired my own website.

JBlogs also got a huge upgrade, becoming object-oriented and easier to use. Not only that, but a lot of security issues were patched and the design became more flexible to other websites. It took me less than an hour to put JBlogs on to a Bootstrap themed website (more on that in the new year) and it integrated pretty perfectly. JBlogs also became more efficient than it was at the end of 2015 as a result of this new design.

I also managed to achieve one whole year of being a pescatarian in September this year - something I'm very proud of!

Just before I finish, I'd like to say thanks to everyone who has been there for me this year, particularly when I've had problems! The main people this year are my good friends Jonathan, Mark and Merlin, who have made this year much easier for me! I'd also like to thank Rob and Helen (lecturers) for convincing me to stay and helping me feel up again! Of course, I cannot forget to mention all of the other people at university, who have also always been there for me. 

So that's another year almost over. 2015 was generally a great year. Now let's hope 2016 is also a great year!

First of all, this post is not an appraisal of Apple in any way, quite the opposite, which is not normally what the posts in the Apple Everything category are.

2015 was not just an odd year for Apple but, in my opinion, one of the worst in terms of design.

The MacBook (Retina)

I was so hyped when the MacBook was being re-released but incredibly disappointed by a certain number of things about it.

The Retina display is a lovely addition to this computer and makes it one of the highest resolution displays in the market at the moment, alongside its bigger brother, the MacBook Pro.

I happen to be the owner of a Pro and feel somewhat disappointed by Apple's recent changes that they have been bringing to the Pros - particularly the miniaturisation of components since this has resulted in Apple taking away all of the possibility of upgrading components.

On the subject of the MacBook, absolutely nothing can be replaced, and the laptop itself features just one connector. A single USB-C connector provides the power inlet as well as the data connector and video connectivity. I'm not a fan of these designs where functionality suffers for design to gain.

This is why the MacBook fails to grab me.

As well as offering just one physical connector, the MacBook is powered by a measly 1.2GHz Core M - a mobile CPU that is intentionally cut down for better thermal design power. Again, this is well suited to making the computer smaller and thinner, but at the end of the day, this is still a laptop computer. Other than that, it is a stunning machine, and had it not suffered functionally, I would have considered one.

Apple Magic Mouse 2

The Magic Mouse 2 was released as the final release of 2015, along with a new Magic Keyboard and a new Apple Trackpad.

The Magic Mouse 2 is, in my personal opinion, the biggest design flaw in any wireless mouse ever.

The Magic Mouse 2 is finally a rechargeable Magic Mouse, meaning you can say goodbye to the AAs required in the previous version. The big flaw with this is how it is charged, however.

The Magic Mouse 2 is charged via the Lightning connector. This is alright, I suppose, although I'd rather have seen it being charged by MicroUSB, but I could never imagine Apple doing this since they like to use proprietary connections that they have developed for everything.

However, the charging connector is on the bottom of the mouse. This means that the mouse cannot be used while it is being charged. I mean, what?! This is so ridiculously stupid, and it may seem impossible to even think that this is the same Apple that designed the iPhone, the Unibody Macs and the iPad, but it is.

I'm not the only one to have complained about this, but this is entirely my own thoughts on this. Take a look at the picture here to see what I mean.

Apple Pencil

The Apple Pencil for the iPad Pro is a really great idea, something that has actually existed for many years on Windows tablets, like my 2010 Fujitsu Lifebook T4410.

The Pencil allows the user to simply write on the screen with a stylus but has the benefits of things like pressure sensitivity and angle detection so that the stylus produces more realistic results. This is great with things like Microsoft Onenote and taking handwritten notes and drawings.

The problem with the Pencil is one of the ways in which Apple has allowed users to charge the device. When the Pencil runs out of juice, the user has the choice to take it to a plug socket with the adapter included and charge it using that. Alternatively, if they only have the iPad Pro on them, they can charge it using the Lightning connector on the base of the Pro. This allows them to go completely mobile and leave behind all charging devices.

The problem is how it is charged, however. Putting the Pencil in the bottom of the iPad Pro and charging it makes the Pencil more susceptible to being broken. Remember all those USB ports that have been broken by leaning on the cable when it's plugged in? The same can be said with the Pencil when it is in the iPad Pro Lightning connector.

Take a look here for a picture of this.

iPad Pro Keyboard

The iPad Pro also came with a keyboard case thing as an option. I was very pleased to see that Apple added a physical connector for the keyboard since a Bluetooth keyboard is not an ideal solution for my idea. I was let down by the fact that it is what I refer to as a 'cloth keyboard'. I'd have really liked it to have been one of the hard keyboards, transforming the iPad Pro into a convertible tablet, somewhat like my Windows tablet.

Mac Mini 2014

I decided to include the end of 2014 in this post since I wanted to bring up the Mac Mini 2014. Once again, the Mac Mini received no updates in 2015, but a 2016 refresh with Intel Skylake is expected.

Nonetheless, the Mac Mini, the modder's machine, in Apple's words, was completely redesigned in 2014. This redesign involved removing any parts that were modifiable and replacing them with parts that could not be changed. What a disaster. The same will be with the 2016 version.

Conclusion

While I am happy with my current range of products, my favourite device is my Mac Mini due to the fact that I can change parts inside. I have a 2012 top model and refused to take the 2014 model due to the fact that there were no quad-core options available, as well as due to the lack of removable parts.

Apple has gone the wrong way recently with design, and knowing Apple, they will not change this and will stick to their guns. Who knows if I will ever buy another Apple product?

I wish you a Merry Christmas for 2015 and hope you all have a wonderful day! Here's that same picture as last year.

2015 is almost at an end. I'm now going to take a few moments to reflect on my website

Thank you for your continued support to my website and me in general! 2015 has been a big year for my website. It started off with me introducing DragonScript, a fast loading PHP script designed to make building my website easier. Indeed it does, and my website hasn't changed too much over the year either. 

Some things have gone through a few transformations however. One of those is the sidebar, which looks great now. Small things like the footer joining in to the site links box also make subtle, nice changes to the website.

I also introduced a singular flatter theme to my website, reduced the number of different colours on the website down to 12 from 23 and focused more on the often neglected desktop section of the website. 

I now ask a small favour of anyone reading this post. 2016 is the year the website needs renewed. If you like my website, I ask you to support me and my pledge with just £10. This would go a long way since it's expensive to host a website that brings in no money. 

As I'm sure anyone who read my blog for technology related stuff will know, Moore's Law is a fundamental 'law' that defines that the speed of computers will double every two years. It's not entirely the case but it holds true for the majority of systems produced.

The law is more of a theory of a computer scientist called Gordon Moore, one of the founders of what is now Intel. It was theorised in 1965 and what it really stated was that the number of transistors that can be crammed in to one integrated circuit will double every two years. 

Intel call this a tick in their 'tick-tock' cycle. Examples of Intel CPUs include the Sandy Bridge range (tick) when compared with the Ivy Bridge range (tock). Both of these ranges were based on the Sandy Bridge architecture. The Haswell architecture which was the next tick could fit twice as many transistors in the same size of integrated circuit, following Moore's Law. 

But on the release of Broadwell, which was based on the Haswell micro-architecture and was the successor 22nm Haswell, we have arrived at transistors that are only 14nm in size, compared with Haswell's 22nm transistors this change is huge. The next step after 22nm according to the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors will come in at 10nm. Currently, Skylake, which is the current range of Intel APUs and is a tick in the tick tock cycle, is facing several problems with going further. For the very first time in the history of Intel's tick-tock cycle, there are going to be two ticks (tick-tick-tock). Why you may ask?

The answer is that Moore's Law no longer holds true with current fabrication techniques. In fact 10nm is posing such problems that it has been delayed until 2017. Cannonlake (formely Skymont), which will be the tock in the cycle will succeed the successor of Skylake, codenamed Kaby Lake. It will drop the size to 10nm. From here on however, there is considerable worry about whether or not we can go any further. We may see for a few years that computers cannot get any more powerful. What worries me is that the companies may use this to make money out of us at no extra cost to them (since the technology will change but the systems will be no more powerful).

So what's the next step then? Quantum computing? Chemical based computing? Biological computing? Good question. 

For the foreseeable future I would imagine that quantum computers will be the future, since they currently already exist. What worries me about the future is how will devices we currently use (such as the world wide Internet) interface with these new devices? I worry greatly about this and how the transition will turn out.

Back in the day, when Netscape and Microsoft started the First Browser War, Internet Explorer and Netscape Communicator fought to become the most popular browser. 

Ultimately, to many people's dislike Internet Explorer won and Netscape disappeared. Netscape Communicator evolved into Firefox. At this time Internet Explorer's share of the browser market kept growing, largely due to the fact that it was bundled with Windows until the EU decided to make it compulsory for Microsoft to include a way for users to change to other browsers easily.

Since then, I have become a web developer, and I stopped using Internet Explorer again in favour of Firefox and eventually Safari. I'm not the only one who stopped using Internet Explorer, however. Year after year the share for Internet Explorer has dropped. Here are the statistics that show this for November 2015 from W3 Schools:

And here is a set of statistics from 2002, 13 years ago (when I used Netscape I'll have you know!)

But why is this the case?

Microsoft just didn't care

Microsoft was very bad at developing Internet Explorer between iterations, they thought because they had a huge market share that they wouldn't lose it. I only realised this after becoming a web developer myself, since developing for Internet Explorer all the way up to IE9 is very difficult.

Even if other browsers had features for a year or two, Internet Explorer would most likely not get these features for a long time after. Prefixed support wasn't even there. Microsoft, as always, just thought it was ok to just leave it. 

Microsoft only cared when Internet Explorer started to disappear.

The future

Microsoft will have a lot of catching up to do with Microsoft Edge since Internet Explorer got them the bad name of the browsers. I personally do not see this happening in a way that will transform the share so that Microsoft has the upper edge again, but I can see them regaining some of the lost ground with it.

Edge is a fantastic browser, especially from Microsoft. Edge really does support cutting-edge technologies and implements most of the web standards well.