So, where should I start?  Citizens of our current system of nation states seem to endure all kinds of hardships.  I would not wish the type of suffering that some have to endure due to the severity of the system of nation states on any of our future children.  Then again, some things seem to remain the same.

The Blazers are an organisation that are based in Belfast, Northern Ireland.  I included the country the Blazers are from as we here in the United, or disunited or dysfunctional or degenerate or down right positively sensible Great Britain… Hang on, thats like 4 different places in 2 different names… A little divisional rivalry I guess would seem to be the ploy mabye?  OK, so, armed with that knowledge I proceeded to consider a thought.  What if I wrote to the people at this Blazers team and found out a little bit about what they were up to?  Heck, I could even manage to spend some quality time with my keyboard and trusty DELL and write a blog post, woohoo!!!

So, back to the script.  How do we use sports to unite the kids in war torn regions that are usually pretty impoverished?  How do you prevent conflict?  How do you bring people together?  I started to make some notes and record some questions into my favourite recorder, EDISON.  Thats a little friend of mine that I acquired a while ago when they upgraded the edit tools in Fruity Loops.  A mighty hand tool might I add that any budding superstar out there thinking of getting familiar with synth programming should get their hands on…  The sytrus tool is kind of a cool tool if you are into art, maybe using Photoshop to create some way cool graphics!

Any way, besides rambling along a little for the last couple of paragraphs, I did take the time out to read the article and I then ventured over to http://www.fullcourtpeace.org to find out a little more.  My first impressions of the website were refreshing and that was just with the web design!  From reading a little about what they have been doing, it looks like they are putting a lot of energy into a very positive project that I had never even heard of before.  If only the popular media would cover stories like this more!

After spending some time reading the blog on the site, I sent an email to one of the contacts, hoping to set up an interview to report back on, here on the blog.  Stay tuned for further details!

NOTE

Maybe I should write updates in a different colour, for version control.

OLYMPICS 2012

This morning I had a mission, or goal I wanted to achieve.  London is hosting the Olympics in 2012 and basketball was given a whopping increase to its funding for the games.  Now, my goal was to be able to use WordPress to publish information using tables.  The default editor for WordPress does not give a user the ability to easily add tables, let alone with data from say a csv or tab delimited text file.  Oh well, never mind I thought, I’m sure that there is a fairly easy way around this one.

OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE

Being an open source guy, I have been using Linux for quite a while.  I first got the bug going back to when I first installed a very early release of Red Hat Linux to build a corporate Intranet for my employers, Hazlewoods.   Yes, as I was saying, being an open source guy, and not wanting to fork out on a tool like Dreamweaver to get my html or xml edited, I did a quick search on the Internet for the current crop of open source editors that are available.

After doing a little research, scouring the lists of available editors, checking the feature lists and assessing the standard of the web site where the source code is hosted, I downloaded and installed Amaya.  Now one point of note for those of you that do not really think about security when using the internet to find new software.  In reality, I should have made sure that there was a secure hash for the download – ah well, for the love of Windows! Anyway, I should probably get back to the whole security thing a little later, but I want to keep this post short and sweet, sticking to the original goal of publishing information using tables in WordPress.

Amaya – XML/HTML EDITOR

Cool, so the reasonably small install of Amaya completed and it was off to work I went.  Amaya is a fairly straightforward program to get to grips with.  Hang on for a moment.  Now I am thinking about my last comment carefully.  I said fairly easy to get to grips with.  I think that it would be best if I added a caveat to the comment.  If you are familiar with using a tool like Dreamweaver, are fairly expert in ftp and all of the other little tools that web developers use to develop and maintain sites, then its a breeze.  However, if you are the type of person that shys away from the command line, and likes to point and click to do everything on a single machine, then I’m not so sure.

FIREFOX & ADD ONS

Back to Amaya.  There is no integrated data environment in Amaya to link to back end tables on say, an SQL or MySQL server.  There is also no wizard or import facility to grab information from a text file.  I had a basketball league table – of the EBBA Division 4 Mens South West League that I had grabbed from the www.englandbasketball.com website that I wanted to put into a table.  To make the process of grabbing the table from the EBBA website easier, I had installed an add-on for firefox called web developer.  You can grab that one from www.mozilla.com.  It’s a nice little add on that makes the whole process of grabbing table data off the web and pasting it to the clipboard in Windows, in tab delimited format.

EASY TEXT TO HTML CONVERTER

So, clipboard had tab text data, Amaya is installed and WordPress is waiting.  Next up, I needed to get the text into Amaya so I could do a little layout stuff with the table, maybe prepping a post for WordPress with some extra text and adding some funky colours.  For this part, thinking about all of the Windows people out there I downloaded a tool called Easy Text to HTML converter.  With a little tweaking to get the output HTML in a format that is Windows friendly, I then had a html file with a clean Basketball league table.

For the observant readers amongst you, there may be a question that you are asking.  I already had the table in html format without even needing Amaya!  True, and very observant of you.  If its just a table of say a league table that you want to post on WordPress, then you don’t even need Amaya.  Aha… now theres an idea.  However, I also wanted to be able to use tables to separate my text from images so that my “xtra” pages line up nicely, say, with the images down the left hand side of the page, with all of the text down the right hand side of the page.

NOTEPAD

Anyway this could be another blog post.  So back to the table.  After switching on the view source option in Amaya, I opened up the html file I created earlier using Notepad (right click – open with….Notepad) and then pasted the text into the source window of Amaya.  Cool – everything looked fine.  This was after having to get the settings correct in the text to html converter first so that there were no “nix” characters in the document…lol  As I said earlier, I could have missed this step out but wanted to do this for myself to be able to prep WordPress documents in Amaya, my open source editor.

Next it was back to WordPress with the source code copied, and here we are, another blog post later with the current league table for EBBA Division 4 Mens South West.

The two players I mentioned earlier, were Greg Streete and Tyrone Treasure.  I love cooking, ah, and even better eating the fruits of self endevour, so without further ado… here is something I prepared earlier!

OK, cool, moving swiftly on from the cooking.  Earlier today, I completed a a design template using Adobe Photoshop to illustrate an example of a Basketball Player Card or Player Profile.  The concept was to produce a template that could be re-used/tailored for different web, print & merchandising scenarios.

The template included the team logo and reused the colours of the team logo to create a “branded” feel to the template.  Although many of the critical “design” buffs out there may scoff at the apparantly lack of creativity I injected into the template, there is however a need for some form of commercial awareness, especially in the time of recession.

Completing projects on time and under budget, to me, is without a doubt, creativity at its finest!  Given that there was not even a budget for these template designs with the whole project being a speculative commercial project, or portfolio designs, I felt the need to keep to a strict plan in terms of time management.

I setup a template for the designs using a sample of an NCAA design I found on the web.  I then proceeded to finish off the template in less than 10 minutes, and had the first copy done in about 15 minutes.  Each subsequent player photo and related work to complete the “card” took about an extra 5 – 10 minutes.

So for a batch of say 20 cards, total setup time would have been:

60 minutes research on net & in basketball media for samples
15 minutes template setup
10 minutes per player

Doing the maths, this would be approximately 200 minutes for a 12 team roster, or rounding it up, approximately 3 and a half hours.

Now, one slight issue that I have with my production process is that design at the moment is not done on a MAC!  My workstation is Windows based and this often leaves me with the feeling of being slightly out of control, let alone getting slightly stressed when tasks take longer to complete than I expect.

To take this twist into consideration, I’m going to bump up my estimated time to get the job done for a 12 player set to 4 hours.  The extra time I have included in the estimate would probably allow me to offer an extra 3 players for the price of 12, making it a 15 player deal for 4 hours work.  This would be so long as the client has agreed to certain guidelines, e.g, so long as the photos provided are of a minimum size/quality.

This is my first attempt at the production process, so I will need to fine tune this over time, especially if I am going to work from home and not really travel to clients office too frequently.

OK, cool.  Thats it, todays blog is completed.  Please feel free to leave me a comment if you have any questions about anything that I have posted in today’s blog.

Please let me know what you think.

TBC

The EBBA has now made Zone Press available online.  Being a thoughtful person, I thought I would provide some assitance for those of you that are conscious of your time managment.  A quick screen print later, using the print screen button on your keyboard for all you Windows users out there, I then pasted the pdf page into Photoshop.  A crop later and saving the resulting image as a medium quality jpeg, and voila – the event calendar image ready to share in any of your promotional material!

http://www.futurestars.uk.com/
On Sunday 6th July, the Czech Republic emerged as winner of the Future Stars 2008 basketball tournament organised by Richmond upon Thames College.  In the final, the Czech Republic and Poland created a thrilling spectacle, which delighted an audience in Kingston College’s Arena.  For the entire first half both teams traded basket and no team had a bigger lead than 4 points.  Towards the end of the third quarter, the Czech Republic took a 10 points lead which proved to be decisive.  The Poles made a frantic effort to cut the deficit but their every effort was matched by crucial baskets from Jan Vesely, Tomas Satoransky and superb point guard Jakub Kudlacek who never lost his control of proceedings on the court.  The final results were Czech Republic 97 and Poland 90 points.

In the 3 / 4 place game, Unicaja Malaga was suffocated defensively by the Slovenian National team which was within striking distance from delivering the surprise of the tournament.  With 1 minute and 30 seconds left on the clock, Slovenia had a 4 points lead and looked very uncertain against Malaga’s aggressive defence.  However, steady leadership from Uros Zadnik won the day for Slovenia with a score of 70-63 but certainly Malaga can be proud of their brave efforts.

Zalgiris and Richmond upon Thames College Select were paired together in 2 leg competitions to avoid the last place in the tournament.  In the first game on Saturday 5th July there was nothing to separate both teams and the game went to over-time.  The Richmond team managed to hold their nerve and accurate shooting from Oliver Robinson, Henry Wilkins and Gary Miles allowed Richmond to finish on the right side of 103-95 results.  The second game was played the following day and proved to be an equally close but far more defensively orientated encounter.  Zalgiris held a 67-64 victory, which was still too small a margin to prevent a jubilant Richmond team from claiming 5th place.

Jan Vesely from the Czech Republic was the unanimous winner of Most Valuable Player award.

For all of you fans out there, make sure that you check out the tournament photo gallery at http://www.futurestars.uk.com/.

Spelthorne Atoms Basketball Club and Richmond College-London United have today announced that as from 1st January 2009 the Clubs will merge together under the umbrella of London United Basketball Club in order to provide a clear progression pathway for players from as young as Under 8 through to Senior level.http://www.englandbasketball.com/news/default.aspx?newsid=1518

For the remainder of the 2008/09 season, the two clubs will continue to play under their existing names but, as from the 2009/10 season, the Junior section of London United Basketball Club (Under 8s through to Under 16s) will be known as London United Atoms, with the Academy section (Under 18s) being known as London United Richmond College, and the Senior section being known by the parent title of London United.

For several years now, players have progressed from Spelthorne Atoms, who are based in Ashford in Surrey, to the Richmond College Basketball Academy which is based at Richmond upon Thames College in Twickenham, and so the merger serves to strengthen the existing link between the two Clubs.

The merger also serves to bring together the different experiences of two long established basketball clubs who have, until now, focused their attentions on different age groups. Both Clubs have in recent years had success on the national stage with London United runners up in Men’s Division 1 in 2005 and making a successful appearance in the British Basketball League (the “BBL”) in the 2006/07 season. Richmond College-London United won the U18 South Conference II in 2008, with Spelthorne Atoms winning both the U16 South Conference II and the U15 South League in the same year. Spelthorne Atoms also made it to the National Final Fours at U16 in 2007 where they came fourth in the country, and again at U15 in 2008 where they came third in the country.

London United General Manager and Director of Basketball, Jack Majewski, said of the merger, “We are all looking forward to working together to create a clear progression pathway, not only for elite players, but also to ensure that all players to achieve to their full potential. London United has strong links with other European Clubs and we also are hoping to build on these links to provide opportunities for all of the young players to travel to, and learn from, the expertise of other European countries thereby also encouraging both international integration and co-operation from an early age.”

To find out more, or to contact London United Basketball Club, visit the new website www.londonunited.eu

Reading Rockets coach Dave Titmuss is looking forward to the National Cup as his side prepare to face Manchester Magic at the EIS in Sheffield on Sunday.

“There is a great deal of respect between our clubs for the way we each run our respective programmes and we both have a focus on winning national titles, so when the ball goes up next Sunday I don’t think you will see two more competitive and committed teams anywhere in the country.

“They probably have the edge on us in offensive options and rebounding and you can be sure that Jeff (Jones) will have them ready to play, so we will need to be at our defensive best if we are to get the extra possessions that we need to put ourselves in a position to win.”

Titmuss is excited that his side have been able to bring several juniors through to the senior side over the last few years, and is looking forward to them having the chance to play at the highest level, “It will be a great occasion for the seven Rockets Academy kids and former juniors that we have on our senior roster and a reminder to them that playing in big games is why they push themselves so hard in practice.”

The two sides met at Rivermead in early November, and Rockets inflicted Magic’s only defeat this season on them with a 78-70 victory. However, Titmuss believes that the win is of no benefit to Reading, and will act as an added incentive for Manchester, “I think both teams have developed since we sneaked a league win against them on our home court back in November, and I’m sure our 20-0 record so far this season will provide a little extra motivation for them – if winning the Cup is not enough! I just hope it is a truly competitive game and a great advert for Division One basketball.”

Rockets’ path to the final saw them chalk up two comfortable victories before facing a pair of tough tests.

Having seen Rich Wellings return to action in last weekend’s wins against Leopards and Bristol Academy Flyers, Rockets suffered the loss of star David Watts. The British forward has averaged 26 points per game for the Rockets this season, and sat out after picking up a throat injury in their final game of 2008 before aggravating it against Derby in the 2009 opener, but he is expected to return for Sunday’s game.

Rockets won the competition in the 2004/5 season in a thrilling final against Sheffield Arrows before missing out in the following campaign’s final, and they have also reached the final four in each of the last two years. In contrast, Leeds’ went out at the first stage of their inaugural campaign in 2006/7 before reaching the third round last season.

They had comfortable victories against London Westside (126-77) and Cardiff Celts (97-47) before surviving a late fight-back against London Leopards in quarter-final, eventually winning 75-72. Rockets had led by 18 going into the final period, but despite the hosts losing star forward Hrvoje Pervan with a broken hand and seeing coach Jon Burnell ejected, they managed to stage a late comeback almost taking the win. Leopards were trailing by 16 when Burnell left the game, but his ejection finally galvanised the hosts as they outscored Rockets 21-8 during the final eight minutes. However two needless turnovers in the final seconds proved key as they fell at the quarter-final stage for the second successive season. Watts again proved to be a thorn in the Big Cats’ side with 20 points.

In the semi-final, they fought off the challenge of Leeds Carnegie to win 84-76. The visiting Leeds team started strongly, building an 11 point lead before Rockets trimmed it to 28-20 at the first break. That lead was quickly eroded in the second period as Reading outscored the visitors 27-14 to take a 47-42 lead into the locker room at half-time.

That lead was doubled to 65-55 at the final break as Leeds were outscored 18-13, and although they shaded the final stanza 21-19, Rockets held on to reach their third National Cup final.

Terrell Smith led the Rockets scoring with 25 points, while Walid Mumuni and David Watts each scored 17.

Men’s National Cup Final
3:30pm, EIS centre Sheffield, Sunday 18th January, Reading Rockets v Manchester Magic.Due to this weeks international fixture, the women’s game has been replaced by the Under-18 men’s Sureshot Cup quarter-finals featuring teams from the same clubs as the men’s final:

11.30am               Manchester Magic          v              Stockport Falcons II
1.30pm                 Reading Rockets              v              Sixth Form College Solihull

Tickets for the games in Sheffield are still available from the England Basketball Shop at a NEW price of £5 for adults and £2 for concessions. Tickets for the Women’s Cup final in Manchester will be available on the door.

As always, EB members are entitled to a 10% discount on all England Basketball Shop items so get your tickets for Sheffied today! Note –The tickets will be available to buy on the England Basketball Shop up to and including Friday 9 January 2009.

Ticket orders can be made online via the England Basketball Shop or over the phone by calling 0114 223 5687.