Welcome to Paul Banks DOT Org

Welcome to Paul Banks DOT Org. Here you will find information about current projects I'm working on, both at work and after hours - including the beginnings of my home automation project. This site also serves as my trial ground for web technologies. (This site complies with XHTML1.1 Strict and was written using a text editor)

This site is largely "academic" in nature - i.e. there's not much personal stuff here except the photos. Enjoy!

Headhunters...

My Curriculum Vitae will be available online shortly

Whats new

First they came for the smokers
I did not speak out as I was not a smoker
Then they came for the drinkers
I did not speak out as I was not a drinker
Then they came for the "junk food" eaters
I did not speak out as I was not a "junk food" eater
Then they came for the motorists
I did not speak out as I was not a motorist
Then they came for me
And there was no one left to speak out for me
Anon, BBC

26/03/08 - Tax Calculator UPDATED
The UK PAYE Tax/NI Calculator has been updated for the 2008-2009 financial year including the now abolished 10% rate. See the download section for the files.

14/04/07 - Tax Calculator UPDATED
By popular demand, the UK PAYE Tax/NI Calculator has been updated for the 2007-2008 financial year. See the download section for the files. Additionally, a new experimental "online" version can be found here

18/06/06 - UK PAYE Income Tax Calculator
Got an ideal salary in mind? Want to know how much the taxman will take from it? "Tax needn't be taxing!" Download the UK Tax Calculator spreadsheet and find out! See the download section for the files.

24/03/06 - MySQL tools Patches
GCC compilers shipped with Fedora 5 seem to break some stuff. The MySQL database toolset is one of them. If you're having trouble then I've uploaded patches for MySQL Query Browser 1.1.18 and MySQL Administrator 1.1.6.

18/02/06 - Projects section started
I've added a projects section to the website. This will host any projects I want to publish for whatever reason.

25/06/05 - VFR Flight Planning just got more funky!
Version 1.4 of the VFR Planning spreadsheet now released! The major new feature is a user-customisable list of positions which are used to automatically calculate track direction and distance (either on a Rhumb Line or a Great Circle. If you use the great circle option then the heading is just the initial heading).

23/06/05 - Windows Parallel Port stuff
New to the downloads section, my Windows Parallel port driver and utilities so you can switch stuff with a computer. Its just a test program at the moment, but I will add an SDK (Initially with examples for Python and C++ and perhaps VB) and release the source in a Sourceforge project.

22/06/05 - Interesting...
Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht frist and lsat ltteer is at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by itslef but the wrod as a wlohe.

19/06/05 - VFR Flight Planning spreadsheet
New to the download section, my first stab at a VFR flight planning spreadsheet. It makes flight planning a breeze by calculating the wind vectors, fuel, etc as well lots of nice usability logic. There are NO macro's in it so you dont have to worry about it eating your computer. As the calculations are done for you, I recommend that students NOT use this at all - stick to that whizz-wheel! See the downloads section for the files.

18/06/05 - Paul Banks DOT Org is born.
[Champagne] I finally got around to starting a website. :)