Musicalmidget’s Blog

Take a look at the Modifications and Plugins page at MyBB Mods. Notice anything? There are now 200 different downloads available for MyBB 1.2, of which around 175 are plugins. Similarly, 68 themes are now available for MyBB 1.2, and that number is steadily increasing. I dare say the current theming contest at MyBB Fans could have something to do with the increasing number of themes cropping up not just at MyBB Mods, but around the MyBB community in general.

Anyway, since the 200 limit has now been reached, I thought I’d share a little something. I moved back home again yesterday after finishing my second year at university. Today, I decided to sit back and make a start on a few improvements planned for MyBB Mods. The first of these improvements is to do with download previews. The current system is very old and has needed updating for sometime now. Currently, authors can link to two URLs to provide previews of their submissions. In order to bring the preview feature up to date, authors will soon be able to submit images with their submissions, which will then be shown automatically on the download information page (thumbnails will be shown in the case of large images). The system will work in a similar way to the MyBB attachment system, in that you’ll be able to upload the attachment and add it to the submission. There will be a limit on the number of images which can be attached to submissions. Although that limit hasn’t yet been decided, it will be more than two, which is all that the current URL based system allows for.

Fancy a screenshot?

I should point out that the values entered into the form in the above screenshot are blank by default, however I placed information into them for the purpose of the screenshot.

The system is a long way from finished and there are several other features I want to create/improve upon before any of them go live. I’ll be working on them over the summer however, with a little bit of enjoying summer too. I’m sure I’ll post some more information soon though.

So, I’ve not been around much recently due to the work I’ve been doing at university. I’ve had a hectic few weeks full of exams and assignment deadlines, but thankfully not anymore. This morning I took my final exam of the academic year, meaning my second year at university is pretty much over. Despite the fact that I’m not totally sure whether or not I’m happy with how all my exams have gone over the past few weeks, it’s a great load off my mind to not have to worry about any of them anymore. I’m still going to be around Hull for another week or so. It’s our end of year ball on Saturday night, and with any luck I’ll be performing in it. Either way, I should now have a fair bit more free time on my hands, especially once I return home for summer sometime early next week.

The summer break looks like it should be good fun, with a return to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August. However, that’s still a few months away, so I’m looking for plenty of things to do over the break, and with a to do list as long as mine, that shouldn’t be too hard. I’ll be focussing quite a bit of attention on MyBB Mods over the summer break. As I’ve mentioned a few times, there are a number of things planned for the site, but soon you should actually begin to see some of those changes begin to materialise. Similarly, I’ll be doing my best to participate in the MyBB community in a much greater capacity than I’ve been able to in recent months. Away from the web (well, kind of), I’ve got a few musical compositions started I’d like to finish, and they’ll probably appear on Sibelius Music sometime in the coming months.

On the subject of compositions, I mentioned in my last post that my latest instrumental composition Racing Rhythms, which I wrote for saxophone quartet as part of my degree, would soon be complete. The composition was performed last week and completed and submitted for marking early this week. It’s now online for anyone that’s interested to take a look at, to see the kind of stuff I do as a composer. I’ve also added an arrangement I’ve done recently of a piano sonatina by Kuhlau, arranged for clarinet choir. This was also done as part of my degree course, but thought it may be of interest to clarinet ensembles somewhere, so it also went onto my personal page at SibeliusMusic. After less than 24 hours online and only ten viewings, the arrangement was printed by someone. It’s great to see some of my musical work printed and potentially out there for use in the “real world”.

On that note (musical joke, bad - I know), I’m going to stop typing and go and enjoy having no university work to do, for the first time since September. With any luck, it shouldn’t be too long until my next appearance, on any website I frequently visit.

It’s been a while since my last posting. Usual reasons, university work, tiredness, etc.

Anyhow, the weather has started taking a turn for the better, but don’t worry, I’m not about to turn this into an “isn’t the weather lovely” post. I’ve been doing a lot of work this past week or so on my next musical compositions which are due in a few weeks, and on the subject of composition this recent change in the weather reminded me of a wind band piece I composed over numerous hot summer days a couple of years ago. Unfortunately, the piece was put to the side for a while and never did see the light of day.

A couple of days ago however, when I remembered about the piece, I decided to make a few finishing touches and publish it as my second score on Sibelius Music. The aptly named Summer Overture was validated earlier and is now available for all to view and listen to.

Summer Overture: http://www.sibeliusmusic.com/cgi-bin/show_score.pl?scoreid=105036

I’m very excited about my latest composition for my degree. Racing Rhythms is a piece for saxophone quartet that is almost complete. Once I’ve submitted the piece for marking, it’ll join my other scores on Sibelius Music and of course I’ll post about it here!

According to my calendar, I don’t appear to have any kind of university exams or deadlines after 31st May. Until then, it’s back to work for now.

Recently, Chris Boulton blogged about Unending, the final ever TV episode of Stargate SG1. Since Stargate has been a part of my TV life for such a long time I thought I should also say something myself.

Although I was sad to hear of the end of the show, I was pleased to hear that for once, the world premier of the final episode would air here in the UK. We often seem to be behind over here, but not this time. Unfortunately, due to a fall out between Sky and newly formed Virgin Media, of whom my family are customers, we lost access to the Sky One channel which was showing the premier, just two weeks before it aired. Thankfully, I was able to see the episode through someone else, and what an episode it was!

I’m not into spoilers, so I wont give any away, but you must see this episode. I was unintentionally exposed to some spoilers about the episode a short while ago (thanks again Gateworld!) and must admit I was worried at first. The concept for the episode didn’t strike me as a fitting way to end such an outstanding ten years. How mistaken I was! It’s a story that ties a few loose ends whilst not completely wrapping up the storyline with the Ori. What’s more, is the nature of the story allows for a fair bit of character interaction, which many will say is what helped the show become so popular in the first place.

The episode had it’s fair share of sacrifice and sadness, but overall, it was a fantastic way to bring the TV series to an end. Also, I think a few things have been setup quite nicely for the upcoming movies and fourth series of Atlantis. If you’ve seen the episode, you probably know what I mean. If not, I’ll not give it away.

Here’s to the end of an era.

I’ve hit the big 20. I’m no longer a teenager. Now that is a strange thought indeed.

This year is the first birthday I’ve spent away from home, and that’s also quite strange. I will be home tomorrow however, so I’ll have to wait until tomorrow to collect any cards and other such goodies which may be waiting. There’s still the possibility of a celebration meal or something with the family tomorrow too, although no plans yet.

Tonight however is set to be a blast. My birthday this year falls on “Tower”, one of the weekly nights at Asylum, our delightful student nightclub. It’s not only the first time I’ve been able to go out on my birthday rather than a day or two before/after, but I’ve also been told I can have free entry to the club and a bottle of champagne. How is that?

It’s certainly been a “different” birthday experience, but great so far.

Hello there! Remember me?

Hasn’t it been a while? One moment I’m sat here typing about Christmas, and the next thing I know it’s February!

Christmas and new year were great. It was good to be home again catching up with people and just enjoying the festive period in general. January was a busy old month though. Exams and deadlines at university and so on. I’m certainly glad that’s over for the moment. There’s still assignments to do even though the exam period is over, but I have a considerable amount more time to get them done, for the most part anyway!

So, we’re in week three of semester two of the second year. That means the halfway mark is now behind us and my degree course is now in it’s second half. Another example of how time is flying by at the moment. It doesn’t seem that long ago I was typing my “Greetings from Hull” thread, announcing my arrival in this fair city.

Today I’m going to post something that I’ve said I would do from day one of this blog, but hadn’t up until this point. My About page has always said that one day I hoped to publish some of my musical compositions online. Well, one of the deadlines I had in the busy weeks of January was for a small scale composition, in my case written for a clarinet choir. I’m still awaiting the results from that one, I think they’re due next week. Nevertheless, the piece is now up on Sibelius Music for all to see. Public proof of me actually doing something!

Anyone that is interested can see the piece online at this page on Sibelius Music. The Sibelius Scorch browser plugin is required however. I’ll attach an MP3 file soon with a synthesised version of the piece created with Kontakt Player. I hope at some point, to get some of my own compositions finished (by that I mean, compositions that are composed freely by me rather than for a uni brief/deadline) and uploaded too. I generally tend to write for larger ensembles such as wind band when it’s a “free” composition. I’ll need time to finish writing them though first!

With the uni workload a little lighter for the moment, I’ve been able to spend a little bit more time online over the last few days. That’s partially how I came to think “wait…don’t I have a blog somewhere?”. That said, I’ll be using this brief gap to get a number of things done and I hope to be able to talk in more detail about them soon. Many of the things on the ever growing list of things to do relate to MyBB Mods. I mentioned previously that there were big things ahead for the site in 2007 and that is still the case. Admittedly, those developments have taken a backseat over the exam period, but they’re by no means forgotten.

Oh, and on a slightly different note, I have 14 days left as a teenager. No doubt you’ll hear more here soon about this strange birthday that is quickly approaching. I don’t feel ready to loose the teenage years. There seems to be some kind of belief that people who are 20 and above have some kind of maturity. Tell me it isn’t so?

Until next time!

It’s that time again…how quickly this year seems to have passed.

I’m now home for Christmas meaning university work is on hold for a short while. This sadly will not be the case for long, I still have a little to do over the festive period. Thankfully however, not too much. That means I have some free time again, meaning, amongst other things, I can post a new blog entry. Hasn’t it been a while?

The last few months have been a little hectic, both with a larger amount of work at uni this term, and a few personal issues which were causing a few problems over the last couple of weeks. The Christmas holiday was much needed and I’m certainly glad to be home again for a few weeks.

I’ve spent the last few days catching up on various things that have happened whilst I’ve been away, both online (catching up on MyBB development, making some changes to MyBB Mods and Towers TV, etc) and offline (friends, family and so on). Similarly, I’ve been spending a lot of time over the last week or so preparing not only for Christmas Day tomorrow, but for Mums birthday, which is indeed today, Christmas Eve. We’ll be going for a meal shortly to celebrate. It’s often hard managing to find somewhere to go for a birthday celebration on Christmas Eve. Many places are either fully booked, stupidly expensive or both. This year however, we’ve had remarkably good luck. A pub on just the other side of town had spaces left today for meals and the ordinary menu still applies, as far as we know. The only flip side is that since the pub is out of walking distance, somebody has to drive. That would be me.

Tomorrow is obviously Christmas Day. I’ve been noticing in recent years how Christmas Day seems to change the older you get (I feel old just saying that). In years gone by I would be unable to sleep with excitement on Christmas Eve, eventually drifting to sleep and waking up first thing in the morning. Once my brother and I were awake, it was off to the parents room to wake them up and see if the Hogfather (Father Christmas to the non-Pratchett fans) had visited. In more recent years however, it’s been completely different. I’m still up late on Christmas Eve, but it’s not just excitement, it’s through choice. Either celebrating with friends or killing time on the interweb. Christmas morning is when it’s now our parents that wake my brother and I, because they’re excited and we probably wouldn’t be up until about lunchtime if left in our own land of slumber. Christmas shopping seems to get more stressful each year and the movies on the TV don’t get any better it seems. The one thing that hasn’t changed since the first Christmas I remember, is Christmas dinner. That never gets old…apart from the sprouts, they’re foul.

Whatever Christmas is to you, enjoy it!

Have a happy holiday!

I posted some months ago about the new Keane album which I was very much enjoying and mentioned that in October, I would be seeing them live here in Hull. That gig was on Tuesday night and it was absolutely fantastic!

It was great to take some time away from uni work on Tuesday to go and see one of my favourite bands kick off a UK tour in the very city I’m currently studying in. The night started with two support acts, both of which were great to hear. Support band Captain were a great choice to get the crowd in the mood before the set started. The music was great as always and was performed with such energy and enthusiasm by the band. New tracks sounded exciting and older tracks from the previous album sounded refreshed as if given a new lease of life. Lead singer Tom’s voice was up to scratch too, with not a note incorrectly pitched all night. There was a nice little surprise about half way through the set with an acoustic version of Your Eyes Open, which was also fantastic and offered a nice little contrast of style before going back into the action packed set.

I had unfortunately not had the pleasure of seeing Keane live before this week but many of those that had previously seen them live agree that this was the show of their career. I certainly thought it was excellent anyway!

Tonight is the night that I and many others have been waiting for. Tonight it’s the Freshers party at Asylum, officially starting off Freshers Week at the University of Hull. I and my housemates will be there religiously. Although we’re about to start our second year here (already!), we don’t officially become second years until registration next week, meaning we can still call ourselves Freshers for a few more days, despite going through all of this last year!

It doesn’t matter so much when all said and done. Anyone can go to the party, regardless of the year they’re in. We’re all looking forward to going out again and getting back into the university spirit, that is a week of insane partying followed by the reality of having to settle a week later and actually do some work. Yes, I did say the word…work. Scary, isn’t it? Personally, I haven’t been out myself much since the end of the first year, with the exception of a brief stint whilst in Edinburgh…and that was only to the club we were performing in earlier in the day, because they were nice enough to let us all in for free. Tonight it’ll be great to be out again enjoying Asylum to the max, with plenty of friends and some new faces too.

It really does seem strange thinking that in a few days time, I’ll officially be in my second year of university. It’s over a year since I arrived at uni for the first year, and it hardly seems like a few months when I look back. It certainly was a fantastic year. I enjoyed my first term in the halls with the Grant Hall C-Unit. I even enjoyed travelling to the uni from home every day (40 miles!) in the second year when I sadly had to leave the hall for personal reasons. I certainly hope the people joining us here this year have an equally special year.

This weekend is quite a significant one for the MyBB Group. As I’m sure you’re aware by now, MyBB 1.2 was released yesterday. It’s great to finally get MyBB 1.2 out there for the public to use. A lot of work has gone into this release and we hope it’ll be apparent in the finished product. Many new features have been included in the release and much of the code has been improved to allow for a more stable and efficient product. You can read more about the improvements in MyBB 1.2 in the official release announcement on the MyBB Community Forums.

It’s also a rather sad time for us this weekend, as developer Peter will be leaving the us to attend the Li Po Chun United World College in Hong Kong. We wish him all the best there and hope to see him again soon. He has contributed greatly to MyBB and his participation will be missed.

With 1.2 finally released, many plugin/theme authors are now directing their attention to updating their work in order to make it compatible with the new release. I’ll be doing the same too in a short while, once I’ve completed the MyBB Mods upgrade to 1.2. I shall probably only update my popular downloads first and then work on the rest depending on the demand for each. Unfortunately, many of my mods/plugins have had very little attention of late and any recent updates have largely been only compatibility updates. Soon however, some of my more popular plugins (such as the Board Message, Shoutbox and Downloads Section plugins will all recieve a major re-write. The code will be improved and some requested features will be added. More info on that soon.