Today I began work on some very lightweight reconstruction on a site that will remain nameless. I was given the code recently and my instructions were to tart-up some of the aesthetics - mostly just images for corners needing alpha treatment and that sort of thing. It also needed some content changing. The site is not live, and is just a prototype knocked up by one of their coding engineers (from what I have established) and therefore I expected to be dealing with a table based layout with some ugly tag soup. My prerogative is to make the changes in two phases. Firstly get it live. The client is very keen for it to be up and running very quickly. In fact he'd like it up and running now. Then, when my schedule clears in a few months time, for me to implement this new-fangled CSS/XHTML stuff that I told him about. I think I'd forgotten how much I've learnt in a year.

The only description I could use for the file when I opened it up this morning would be 'Tag Vomit'. Not only had it become totally useless on browser support (I supplied them with a 760px wide image to cut up and implement for the design, and it has suddenly expanded to a 1088px wide fixed layout! Argghhh!), it also is riddled with tables, span tags, style="x" attributes and cheekily calls a XHTML document type without any extra closing tags. If I'd run it through the validator it would have crashed.

If you are not a web developer yourself this will mean nothing, so in brief I will explain. It is possibly one of the most god-awful website constructions I've ever come across. Anyone without a screen the size of Antarctica won't be able to view it, and only then if you are using Internet Explorer will you get the optimum viewing experience (seeing the content).

Therefore, although it really pains me, I am only going to be applying more crap. I'm can't try and resolve this problem until I have the time and resources available. Ideally I'd delay launch for the next few months, but with this not possible, I'll have to bodge. While I am committing a crime against usability, I will say that when it comes in for refit in 5 months, this site is going to be a flagship for good practise. Sorry to everyone in the meantime. Sincerely.

In other news, my house are all out tonight for the first time in a month. Hooray for the end of exams.

If there is one thing about running your own business that I really like, it's meeting with clients. Although this might sound a bit weird (why on earth would you want to spend time in meetings?) I am a fairly personable person, and so it gives what otherwise is essentially a computer based lifestyle some element of social interactivity. And despite what people often think, I'd much rather be away from the computer than on it. Plus communicating in all things digital is often hassle-free, but it's much better to be face to face with the person. Ideas flow better. Its just generally better.

Yesterday morning I had to peel myself out of bed at 8am for a 9.30am business meeting. Not accustomed to getting up at such a ridiculous hour, I made sure the shower was set to scalding and the coffee mixed to the consistency of road slurry.

All went well. I met with Mark from Fragwear / MMDownload / DriverHeaven / PCdoesIT / EasyType / TradePrice to discuss a range of project work over the next six months and ultimately time immediately after my graduation. It looks like there are some fairly high profile projects on the horizon, and it sounds like there may well be extra strings to my bow (my portfolio), possibly including work on internet virals.

Due to the nature of the day (Friday) it was necessary to celebrate the traditional student festival (the weekend), and so I made my way over to Tongy's for a FND pre-party with a crew entirely made up of guys from IDT. We chilled for a while there before catching a drink in Orange Tree (briefly seeing Mario; Happy 21st mate!) and then a taxi to the Union. The queue was stupidly long , but the extra wait gave us time to meet up with Anna and her new boyfriend, who were back up from placement. Ginger Rich and DDS were also knocking about too.

Once inside we traipsed around the bars and eventually settled on the balcony for a while. As the night drew on I ran into a number of towers/ex-towers people and spent the end part of the night in piazza and Bocca. Chris made a major misjudgement during the course of the evening, and ended up outside, but thankfully nothing came of it. Overall a good laugh.

None of my house had been out. Rufio and Devito had met up with Flash in Notts for a Strokes concert, and had planned to be back in time to get to the Union, but didn't make it in the end. However this morning it gave me time to catch up with Flashman over a Maccy D's, his treat.

Tonight I think I'm being taken out again.

Being that I was ecstatic after completion of such a major part of my degree it was key to sustain the feeling with some party. This meant that after the exam I nipped back home, blogged, had some food, nipped back out for nine o'clock and the beginning of what can only be described ultimately as a course social.

Until last night the most exclusive celebrity event I have ever encountered was when I got my photo taken with Liza Tarbuck and Sandi Toksvig when they were doing a TimeTeam dig in Canterbury. I was too afraid to ask for a photo with Tony Robinson (the guy is a legend). I also once had my photo taken with Lucy Pinder and met Leslie Philips, which were both very cool moments for very different reasons. Dick Powell from SeymourPowell once had a look at some of my A-Level product design work, but apart from this and going to school with Nick Owen's son (from Midlands Today), there is little to link me to the celeb world. Oh I suppose I did go out with the daughter of an Olympic Athlete/World record Holder/the god daughter of Gladiator's striped Scotsman John Anderson. That counts too. But apart from these brief encounters my time has been devoid of mingling with famous people. I was therefore pleased to add another name to the list last night when I asked Simon Jones if I could take a photo of him with Rosie and Lianne. Initially he looked sceptical until I pointed out "they're the two blonde birds over there" when he perked up. Later I think I accidentally shoulder barged him (in the knee, he's fairly tall). A claim to fame and Totty Spotted while not totally wasted. A night of firsts.

Mike turned up a bit later. There was plenty of mingling with people; Wadd, Nature, Jim, Robbie, Tom, Joe, Action Cat, Emily, DDS, Coyle etc until Mike took me to the bar, handed the barman a tenner and got all his change in shots of Tequila, Sambuca and Whiskey.

After we'd finished up we headed to Mario's for food, but mortified the queue was ten minutes long, we took a taxi into town to Mario's HQ. It was then decided bad idea and we went for a curry at Far Pav. All I can remember was that we were the only ones in there and trying to say thanks in Indian.

Brilliant night, slow day today. I've got clients coming up from London (I think) tomorrow so it's best behaviour and a bit a of a tidy up going on this afternoon.

...to have just finished the last academic exam you will ever do in your life. Unless of course you fail and have to do it again, or unless the person in charge of the papers spontaneously combusts on the way back to the office, or you decide to do a post graduate course. Apart from that, this is how it feels.

Exams usually go well for me. I have mentioned this before, but I have to say it again because this one went as well, if not better than, the last one. To be fair, I should do well in a web design exam. Explaining how to use a search engine isn't my idea of the Crystal Maze. I am happy, elated, overjoyed to know that this is truly the end of revision and lesser so, revision sessions (which invariably turn out to become course socials).

Tonight therefore, I will be celebrating, along with Jim, DDS, Rosie, Lianne and other people who were sensible enough to pick the BA route (even if the decision originally gave me plenty of gyp).

Mario unfortunately chose to pursue Materials and so will still be working away until Monday. Poor sod.

Yesterday evening was spent trawling web dictionaries for definitions that would never show up in the exam anyway, but better safe than sorry. I also read through endless, mind-numbing pages on how you should Google, and why 1 minute 10 seconds in a microwave is actually longer than 1 minute 11 seconds. Don't ask. Go look it up.

If things academic are going my way, real digital things are not. For instance, after downloading iTunes 6.0.2 I have since discovered that my old iTunes scripts have stopped working and I can't skip tracks from my keyboard any more. I have also failed to set up POP email access on my Yahoo account; several times.

At least I can bask in the cold while my housemates get on with the rest of their exams.

Today was packed with things to keep me moving. There were revision sessions, websites, logos and letter writing amongst the long list of activities I have skirted between.

Yesterday contained similar activities; mainly working hard on the Unipal account.

Thankfully the majority is now cleared and I'm ready to have a proper go at revising tomorrow. There are still a few odds and ends that I would prefer to be shot of, but that's life. As things today have been mostly grindstone related, and it's tired me out so I'm not going to elaborate further.

You can amuse yourselves.

Occasionally something comes up that is either a bit strange, or just plain shocking. I had one of those experiences yesterday morning, although unfortunately I can't really say anything about it without there being repercussions. Whatever it was though, you can be assured it was swimming around in my head all day.

Yesterday also was the first day I'd been out in Lufbra in an age. Nearly two months since a proper night in the Union. I can't really begin to describe how good it is to see people again, after what has been far too long.

'Tingy' came over for the pre-FND warm up and we made our way over around 11.30ish. I eventually got to bed at 5am this morning after calling back in to see Broomy on Swan's and my way back home.

Today will mostly be spent on epic projects.

I don't really struggle with exams. I don't get nervous, my revision is generally calm and things tend to go to plan. I'm pretty god damn lucky.

Thankfully yesterday's exam was no exception and I think the thing went well. The paper was Entrepreneurship and Innovation, and despite revision starting approximately 17 hours before kick off (less five hours of sleep) I seemed to have absorbed enough to answer all the questions happily. DDS, Sean and I met up after and went for a drink in Towers Bar before heading back and wallowing in new found freedom, except it wasn't. I was determined to get in at least something to the degree show competition, and so set about some pretty quick logo design.

It was good to distract myself with something other than diabetes equipment design or the ins and outs of Porters Five Growth Market Forces. In the end I managed to submit about seven designs (variations included). All good.

Eventually my body couldn't cope with the long hours endured and I collapsed into bed, sleeping in until 1pm today, and hell I feel better for it.

Today has been spent working on a new site for Unipal and setting up a podcast for Chris. There was also a little bit of blog re-authoring, but that will be a while coming. Tonight however, I am enjoying some new found freedom...