Following on from my previous post I wanted to highlight some of the other things I am attempting to do with this site.

The events “system” was implemented over a year ago now, originally it was a way for me and Lloyd to keep track of the various events that we wanted to attend and get photographs of - a web version was the preferred way of doing it rather than the simple spreadsheet that we used for a few weeks but soon got frustrated with.

The original version of the events system was just a single table with the basic information about the events we were interested in and was then simply displayed on a page, the information was merely things like name, location, date / time and URL.

Soon enough more and more things were added, the most notable additions were an email notification system (which emails us when the event is 7 days away) and more recently the integration with my main site. The data being held in the table grew and the system is currently split into 2 different areas, a “public” view, which shows only the events I want to make public on the Events page and only displays basic information about the event, and a “private” version that shows every event and all of the information associated with it, for example if there are tickets required or any notes that I have added about it for personal use - This is of course integrated with my new login system depending on what user level your account is.

As with before, this system was built in stages over time and with differing techniques as I learnt more and more about PHP development (It was a mix of procedural PHP and functional PHP so there was business logic and other code all over the place), this became a problem when I needed to integrate the system with other projects rather than just my site, because there was no common structure and without recreating the system on a different server (which wouldn’t be a very manageable solution to the problem, and would only have served to negate the issue) it was practically impossible to use for anything else, in short it wasn’t written in a reusable way.

So with this in mind it became my aim to bring the whole thing into the Object Orientated world and from there create an API for my own use (and others if they wanted) to pull data out by creating a REST Web Service and returning the data using standard XML.

An example of the XML output

Now that I have created the API I am free to use the data on any system simply by calling the API and parsing the XML data returned, and all in a very easy and manageable way, this means that not only can I use the data for other sites I make if required but I can also use it for my final year project, a double bonus if you will.

A bit more information about the API can be found at www.mylesnoton.com/services/api/ documentation will be added in the near future.

It is unlikely that anyone apart from me will want to use the API, but it will help me a huge amount and if one person finds it as useful as I will then it was worth it!

It has been a vision of mine for many years now to evolve my site into something that has something of value, more than just a few pages with some images to show of what I can do, but something that will not only provide people with information about me, my skills and my current activities and also gives the visitor a reason to come back, and I guess some sort of ’service’.

A lot of the time the vision was just out of reach, marred by the lack of programming skills on my part, whenever an idea came into my head I was unable to put code to server and get something working.

Well all that is changing, with age and perseverance comes PHP knowledge, and with more age comes OO PHP knowledge.

Following on from the design update a few months ago and the introduction of the events system I have almost completed the implementation and rollout of a login system which is going to be the foundation for the following things:

Visitors will be able to signup and access other areas of the site, and over time you will be able to do extra things such as signup for event alerts and get an email when an event is a week away, and many other things that I plan to complete in the near future. You can sign up for one right now if you like, but there is very little ‘new features’.

It’s now been integrated into my administration system, if you have an admin account you will be able to access the backend management system that I have made for my site (although that only really affects me).

The same system will be tied into the “Client” section of the site, which is also under development and about 80% complete, this will not really affect many people, but is also part of my vision of allowing people I take photos for to login and see the “Shoot” that was taken, review the photos and select what ones they want to download. Based on the ones selected they will then be able to download a zip file of the original images, or alternatively just download them all.

And the good thing is that all this is that I can use the OO foundation that I have built in my final year project, as well as other elements that I have built.

What could have been, has become…

Who would have thought that even in the piercing winds you can still get sunburn? Despite the weather however, there were a few breaks in the clouds so I took the opportunity to get some nice shots.

Boeing Apache

Red Arrows

Airbus A380 in flight

Parachute Display Team

The rest of the set can be found here

Saturday was one of the many days that the Motor Expo was in town. Under the shadows of Canary Wharf was a selection of cars ranging from Ferrari’s and Aston Martins to BMW’s and Mercedes. Thankfully the weather was good and the sun was shining. As usual I had my camera to hand to take some shots of the cars - I switched between my 50mm f1.8 and 100mm f2.8 Macro lenses, I think they came out quite well.

Motor Expo 2008

Jaguar XF

VW Passat

You can view the rest of the photos by going to my Motor Expo 2008 Photo Set

Better late than never, here are some of the photos taken at Party Near the Park 2008. Overall the night was a success, the voting went down to the wire - there was only about 1% between first and second place - so as you can imagine it was only down to a few votes in the end. Of course I had my camera on hand for the event and managed to snap a few photos in between monitoring the incoming votes.

Party Near the Park Stage

One of the Acts on stage

Behind the scenes in the ‘tech’ area - the life of the show

If you want to see some more photos of the night you can see them in my Party Near the Park 2008 Photo Set

Today I am pleased to anounce the launch of my new Mobile Wallpaper store powered by STARtxt.

Ever wanted to stare lovingly at my photos while on the move? Well now you can! Take a look at my brand new online store and browse through some of my best photography to download on your mobile!

Want to see an example?

Text MYLES FREE to 60123

I will be adding more and more as time goes by, and I will probably add some of various events that I attend, so keep checking www.mylesnoton.com/mobile for more updates!

Today was the day the A1GP crews stopped off in Regents Street - London to display their cars ahead of the A1GP race at Brands Hatch on Sunday. Despite the poor weather I managed to get a few shots of the cars and Pit Girls as they were lined up along the street.

A1GP Motorsport

A1GP Motorsport Pit Girl

A1GP Motorsport Car

More photos from the A1GP Pit Stop can be seen in my A1GP Pit Stop Photo Set

City of London Skyline - Greenwich Park, Greenwich

It’s not often you get the chance to sit back and relax while looking over the marvellous skyline of the City of London, and there certainly aren’t many places where you can see the whole thing all at once.

There is much debate about the historic London views that will be ‘ruined’ by Mayor Ken Livingston’s deregulation of the planning rules in the Capital, however, while the historic buildings are known the world over and are an important part of London and English Heritage in general, in my opinion people come to London to see Buckingham Palace and St Pauls Cathedral up close, not just look at it from a distance.

London, like every other city has changed over time, I’m sure the same was said about Canary Wharf back in the late 80’s when it was being constructed, but like it or not the need for more and more buildings and the limited amount of space available means that there are going to be trade-offs, a more developed skyline is one of them.

I’m looking forward to the new buildings, there should be a few good photographic opportunities.

Let’s face it, most of the people who attended this years MCN London Motorcycle show went for one reason - the girls. Sure we all pretend it was to see bikes, but most just wanted to see the girls wearing very little clothing….admit it.

In true event fashion it appears once again that I was in the right place at the right time and in one of the best places at that.

As soon as we arrived there was a must photograph event, the MCN Babes were coming on stage to introduce themselves before the competition to select an MCN London Motorcycle Babe 2008. Naturally nothing but 15cm from the stage would have been good enough - so that’s what we did. After it was time to take some photos of the bikes before taking the same position at the front of the stage to take more shots of the MCN Babes.

MCN Babe Winner and Runners up posing for a photoshoot

MCN Babes introducing themselves on stage

Motorcycle Model

Motorcycle Model

It pays to be in the right place at the right time. The rest of the photos I took can be found in my MCN London Motorcycle Show 2008 Photo Set

I’ve always questioned Jessops, their product range seems a bit limited and most of it can be bought elsewhere for a lot less than the price they charge. It’s always funny when the staff ask you if you need any help and you know that you probably know more about the product you’re looking at than they do.

For a while now Jessops has been going down the pan but they don’t seem to be doing much to stop it, they still aren’t competitive and they still seem to have incompetent staff, but what makes it even worse is when they manage to completely mess up things that are so simple.

I decided to buy a Manfrotto 728B Tripod, the places I found online were cheaper than Jessops but I decided to go with them anyway because it saved bothering with delivery etc - So I reserved it on the Jessops website and was told I could pick it up from the Kingston shop today (Sunday) between 11.00am and 5.00pm. Sunday came and I got a phone call - from none other than Jessops telling me that they didn’t have it in stock, and neither did any other store in the area - despite the fact that the website had let me order it and reserve it in store.

How can Jessops sell items and offer them for collection in store when they don’t actually exist in their inventory? Why does jessops.com let people buy things that aren’t in stock….It’s a joke.

No wonder why they’re going bust, they can’t get anything right.