June 27th, 2008
This is a bit of a belated message to say that I am gay and am running away… okay so I lied, I have left The 9rules Blogging Network to go it alone in the blogging world. I just want to say thanks to all of you that have found me from the 9rules site and to those that have been my extended family for the past couple years, I know I haven’t been as active of late and I still consider 9rules to be some of the best content available online, passionate words everywhere and I guess a catalyst for me leaving.
Tyme, Mike and Scrivs, I thank you all for having me as part of your network and perhaps one day you will have me back once I have time to channel my thoughts and passions into my blog again on a regular basis.
It’s been a pleasure getting to mingle with my peers, people that I look up to and that I have a lot of respect for, not only that I’ve made a few good friends with whom I stay in touch.
Time waits for no man as I have said before and it’s time for this man to move on. You’ll be pleased to know I am not going anywhere though so it’s a pointless statement, all I have done is retire from the commitment of writing as a part of 9rules.
I’ll still be writing and I hope that you will continue to stop by if and when it takes your fancy.
Take care folks and you’ll see me about. Got about 700 things I need to do on this site but until then I have 700 things to do on other things which I am afraid to say take precedence over entertaining you lot..
Watch this space, I think Tyme said it beautifully when she told me “don’t be a stranger
, that very much goes out to you lot too!
June 4th, 2008
Just want to issue a quick apology for unavailability of the site over the past few days, apparently someone out there has had a rougher time than me due to a transformer catching fire in a data center where 3 of my sites are hosted.
Check this out…
Network outage affecting several servers
Posted May 31 at 18:22 CDT by Richard Cooper in Downtime - 0 comment(s)
Issues at one of our data center are causing downtime on several servers. We are working to resolve this problem as soon as possible.
Update: Today at approximately 5:45 p.m. CDT, a transformer in one of The Planet’s Huston datacentres caught fire, requiring them to take down all of the generators on site on the instructions of the fire department. This is one of six data-centres used by WebFaction. All servers hosted at that datacentre are currently offline.
The difference between Webfaction having issues and a Fasthosts cock up is that I still trust Webfaction and know they didn’t hand out my passwords or some stupid shit like Fasthosts would do.
I just hope the poor souls that had to deal with it are getting a week off after a week of no sleep.
Anyway… that’s the why the site has been down, please excuse me if the site is a little wobbly over the next few days but I hope that is now service resumed.
April 1st, 2008
As the clock counts down to The Highland Fling 2008 - The browser and beyond, things are heating up at my end. Bags have arrived, some nice books have been delivered curtosy of Friends of Ed and Sitepoint and everything else is in the pipeline.
I’m getting really excited, last year was a blast and the topic this year is going to be an excellent discussion point. I’m looking forward to seeing everyone on the day and getting to meet some new folks and catching up with others I haven’t seen for a while.
As some of you might notice, this place has had a bit of a rennovation recently, I had a little bit of a hosting accident, I was sorry to hear that the company that had been so kind as to host my site for over a year went bottom up. The end result was that I had an SQL dump and no imagery so had to think on my feet and come up with something new… and quick!
18hrs later and I have new site and design up and running but I know it is still a little rough around the edges so please bare with me as I work out the kinks. I certainly welcome any feedback on the new design.
So what lies next? Buckle up and go for a rollercoaster ride again…
Will post again as soon as I have some time!
October 6th, 2007
Hi lovely readers of Az, Caz & Co, I am Alan’s beloved photoshoped monkey and I am sorry that you are all missing me. I have been working on standing in the corner of Az, Caz & Co for over a year now and Alan decided to give me a rest and paid for me to go on a little holiday whilst he lays down the dust sheets, cracks open the paints and does a little work around the place.
Don’t worry, I really like working for Alan and I will be back… Until then I will try and send you some postcards.
Lots of love and respec’
MoNkEy x
October 4th, 2007
Just a quick post to explain the drastic change of appearance, I have decided to whip things into shape and live dev this site into a new format using Dereks beautiful Grid Focus as a starting point.
You’ll have to excuse the non styled basics and redundant linkage for about 8 hrs till I am done with work etc then I am going to give it a quick lick of paint and see where it takes me.
Hat tip to Gnorb for pointing me in the direction of a nice starting point.
Am looking forward to this 
August 29th, 2006
When I launched this redesign as part of the CSS Reboot back in may, I was was really excited about the comic I was going to be running on my site but unfortunately some people are not as driven as myself and I have been somewhat let down by the guy that did the comic. It’s bit of a shame really as he is really talented and I was looking forward to having a graf twist to the site.
No biggie though, I will just do a site re-align that I have been wanting to do anyway. It is about time that I had a tinker with the site so that I can add some extra functionality that I hope you will enjoy, I know I will benefit from having a few extra tools at my disposal.
If any of you out there are talented artists that would like to get some exposure for your work then feel free to contact me and I’m sure we can work something out. I am very much into symbiotic relationships so don’t mind clearing some floor space to help someone out whilst adding value for my users, that might be wishful thinking but hey I gotta try and fill the void don’t I…
Yay… I got some tinkering fun ahead
August 28th, 2006
Over the last two months I’ve had the pleasure of stepping into the world of freelance contracting and in turn have moved to starting up my own company (more on this later) which I am over the moon about. At first I was a little scared of what the future might hold but I am very passionate about what I do so had confidence in the fact that I could make things happen and my hard work has paid off so far.
This is all fine and well but what happens to your blogging when life happens? I am not making excuses here, I am a busy man these days and writing my thoughts etc has had to take a back seat for a couple of months and I guess to a certain extent life happened…
I love this site and all of the people that have taken the time out of their lives to actually say hi and contribute whether it be with a joke or joining in with comments on one of my posts. I love my family and the benefits of having been about for the entire summer holidays so have had time to play with the kids doing things like water skiing and trampolining. I love the fact that I am getting the chance to actually forge my own future and take control of what happens when and where…
Life is happening! For a while I felt that I was maybe stuck in a life rut, I had a good job, a beautiful family but all I seemed to do was be working towards something. I spent a lot of time bashing away on my keyboard, carving a little bit of my own name on the web and having fun whilst doing it but after moving away from friends to go to my new job I think I was left with a bit of a hollow spot.
Since taking the bull by the horns and deciding that I was now in charge and that I was going to do things for myself I think I have possibly grown up a bit, I don’t know if it is that or the fact that I have had the chance to bond a bit more with the ones around me who perhaps I had neglected a little whilst keyboard bashing. I know that I have a happy, bordering on satisfied feeling about me at the moment. I have plans!
Life moves at an incredible pace and sometimes you need to catch up, too many people can get caught up doing one thing, I know I have lagged from time to time. Now that I have had some time out, I think I have had a chance to analyse where I want to be going, I went from 4.5 years in one job to finishing on the Friday, moving 150 miles away over a weekend and starting a new job on the Monday. Whoa… CATCH UP!
Since I started this blog, I have met a lot of wonderful people and I want to continue to do so, when I got into 9rules I was over the moon about getting to mingle with some very talented people. I wanted to give something back to a community that I have enjoyed over the years, I wanted to get up to mischief, I wanted to continue carving my name on that web tree and still do 
I haven’t been 100% on the ball with that but truth be known I am still living the rules even if I ain’t talking on there lol… Work hard, Play Hard… Right now it is work hard!
If I don’t work hard then who benefits? Nobody. If I don’t work hard I can’t afford a house, if I don’t have a house I can’t plug in my PC, if I can’t plugin my PC then I can’t have internet, if I can’t have internet I can’t blog, nor can I do my work… vicious circle or what??
So where does that leave me? Well I am working hard and thankfully still have a roof, PC, internet, my blog and most importantly I have my family around me and a business that looks to be getting off the ground, I would say that is a good thing. I am writing just now because I want to, I have something to say and am going to say it, I hope you continue to keep coming past and enjoying the site because it ain’t going anywhere and I have lots of ideas I want to implement as soon as I get some more business stuff out the way.
Anyway, life is happening, I am loving it and I hope you lot don’t feel neglected… take it easy, and watch this space!
June 4th, 2006
Holy shit, who’d have thought it? I have kinda kept quiet on this one but when 9Rules opened up for submissions I was game for it so submitted this site. I am very passionate about the web and do my best to improve all the time, I believe in pushing myself and taking steps that I wouldn’t normally take and it pays to do these things.
A whopping 700 sites entered and only 111 got accepted, you can view the full list here… it’s nice to know that someone out there appreciates the efforts I put into what I do and now that I have a chance to do even better I intend to capitalise and hopefully grow as both a person and a professional.
So what is the 9Rules network? Well here is a blurb from the 9Rules site
We highlight the very best web content in the world, and package it in a nice bow for you to unwrap. Our members discuss a wide range of topics from interface design and technology, to business, humor, and many others.
…and what are these 9 rules I here you ask?
- Love what you do.
- Never stop learning.
- Form works with function.
- Simple is beautiful.
- Work hard, play hard.
- You get what you pay for.
- When you talk, we listen.
- Must constantly improve.
- Respect your inspiration.
These rules pretty much sum me up to a t anyway but I have a new family now and look forward to some great times with them all. Thanks to those of you that have supported the site and given me reason to keep going, I will do my best to not let you down…
I still have to officially accept the membership agreement, I guess the guys have been busy at the 9rules headquaters so I haven’t yet had an official email about it but I will not lie, I have a very sweet taste in my mouth and will be happy to sign on the dotted line (err unless I have to drink blood and sacrifice stuff).
Congratulations to everyone that got in, I look forward to meeting you all and making some new friends, here’s to the future…
Scrambles about to clear a space for his new shiney badge
I will post again once I know what is going in on… 
May 19th, 2006
This is it. Hold onto your hats folks as the new Az, Caz & Co podcast comes into effect. I’ve finally gotten round to firing up Audacity, Winamp, and some mild drum & bass to bring you some audio entertainment and hopefully add another dimension to the site.
You’ll have to bare with me on this one, it’s still early doors and I’ve never done anything on the audio production front before and one cannot learn everything in a day, I will however give it a damn good go
I’m hoping to try and roll one of these out once a week and most likely on a Thursday night because Caroline works and I will have peace and quiet to get things done. The kids might begin to worry about my sanity though!
Future plans for the podcast include a wealth of interviews on a variety of subjects such as digital, music, life in general and hopefully get some comedy nonsense on the go too. I hope you enjoy it, I know I am going to!
Anyway, thats the heads up, enjoy the show…
[audio:http://www.azcazandco.com/podcasts/podcast-intro-18-05-2006.mp3]
Download the podcast here…
May 1st, 2006
So here it is folks, the shiny new website, as promised and I hope you like it. I have re-designed the site as part of the CSS Reboot and if you feel so inclined, you can rate it by viewing my profile.
So what has changed around here? Quite a lot actually, gone is my modified K2 theme and in with the dark monkey and I am proud to welcome the addition of a regular comic called “Pandemic” by a grafitti artist called JZY. One of the things I wanted to do with this was to tone down bell and whistle plugins and roll with a focus on what I write, I plan to integrate a few more things but hey, time was tight and I needed to launch.
This is what my site looked like before the reboot:
This has been quite a big deal for me, I have a) never taken part in something like this and b) had an awful lot to learn in order to do the custom job that is now at your mercy. Please let me know what you think of it as feedback is always welcome.
Wow, feels good to be typing again instead of coding, I have been busy with work recently so was a little concerned I was going to run out of time. Many hrs have been spent in front of my computer in the last month and I thought at one point I may even be on the cards for divorcee of the year awards. Caroline has been patient with me and I have battled on and I think it has been worth the effort although there will no doubt be some refining going on over the next week or so.
There is nothing quite like a deadline to help you focus, it is harder to focus on a deadline when you have a family about, I am looking forward to not having the night time responsibility of building every night when I get in from building all day. I spent the day today in the park with my daughter and we had a ball and I am looking forward to doing more of things like that… oh yeah, and perhaps avoid that divorcees award
Anyway, that is my brief little write up on what I have done, I look forward to any feedback you may have and lets see what the future hold for us.
I’m back in full effect and I ain’t going anywhere soon!