Useless of Blog

Homeopathic Customer Service

2012-01-25T21:09:00.001Z

Earlier today, Pink Goddess showed me an email. I can't reproduce it here, but the general message was this:

"We messed up your order, which is why it's two weeks late. To apologise, you can have free postage and packing on your next order."

For me, this is just made of fail.

First, they screwed up this order. Given that, why would anyone in their right mind give them another go? So, the offer to fix it is a bit of a waste. Second, most places that let you order on-line give you a free delivery option. Third, what happens now?

Let's try "under promise and over deliver". They haven't charged her card yet, so let's try this on:

"We messed up on your order. Sorry about that. We know what happened, and we have fixed the problem. We haven't charged your card, and we won't. However, we're shipping your order anyway. You'll have it in a week."

The order is a significant amount of money, but it's not about the money. It's about fixing the problem.

(I'm not going to tell you who the supplier is, but the title should be a hint.)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

InsomniMac

2012-01-11T21:46:00.001Z

During a quiet moment at work, I pulled out my trusty iPad and quickly Googled for reasons why my desktop wouldn't go to sleep. In general, there's a load of reasons why a computer won't go to sleep, but this was a weird one. It was weird because the screen saver wouldn't start, and the screen wouldn't dim. I hadn't seen a computer do that before.

I found the usual random stuff, but nothing matched the symptoms I had. In the end, it came down to two things that it could be: Google Software Updater and Dropbox LAN sync. So I decided to start with the Google Updater. I launched it, just make sure everything was up to date before I killed it. Instead, it told me that I didn't need it any more, and moved itself to the trash. One down. Next, I updated Dropbox to the latest version and turned off LAN sync. No change there. Bother.

So I just rebooted it, just because the load average was about 2, and that seemed a bit high.

At this point, I was officially out of ideas. So I gave up and left it. A little later, I noticed that my phone wouldn't sync. At this point I am officially failing to out two and two together. I decided that it was down to iTunes not starting when I rebooted. So I left it and went to bed.

When I have an early start, I usually get dressed in the spare room, which is where my computer desk is. Still not getting it, I noticed that my computer was down...

Yeah, turns out that one or other of the things I did had fixed the sleep problem. And seems to have sorted the load average problem, so my machine feels a lot faster. Now what do I do with this 4GB of RAM I bought...? (Yeah, trick question, I'm going to put that in anyway.)

- Contributed using BlogPress from my iPad

Happy New Year

2012-01-01T09:00:00.000Z

I'd like to wish a Happy New Year to everyone out there on the other end of the intertubes!

Hard Bright Lines

2011-11-03T21:41:00.001Z

As you might know, I now work for SAI Global, one of the world's leading companies providing corporate governance and compliance solutions. As such, we all need to lead by example. I've accepted a company laptop and mobile phone. These are clearly to be used for company business only - anything else could be an ethical violation. And so, I only do work on the company devices. Anything else, such as organising a certain gentleman's stag do, I do using my iPad and personal phone. This was something of a shock after Talis' somewhat more laid back attitude towards these boundaries.

However, it has had an unexpected positive effect. Since I've had to make sure that anything that I can't justify as work-related happens on my personal kit, I have felt much more directly the difference between work and things that aren't work. This has helped my concentration and focus no end. Suddenly, I can feel when my concentration has drifted, and it's much easier to get my concentration back to work.

From now on, this is what I shall do. When I'm trying to work, I'll make sure that I have my iPad with me, and I'll keep drawing hard bright lines between work and play. Work happens on work's laptop, play happens on kit that I own (and it's not like I suffer from a shortage of kit at the moment), and I should remain much more productive. Keep reading here to see what happens. Oh, and please feel free to comment if you've tried this approach, or something similar, and let me know how it went.

This just in from the 'Rod For Your Own Back' department

2011-10-08T20:00:00.000+01:00

Following on from a previous post in which I banged on at some length about how useless questions about the ISO 7-layer model are, I went for an interview where that was the first question. That'll teach me (or perhaps not).

As such, I decided I'd explain somewhat. You may find the Wikipedia article on the OSI model helpful. A crucial point to remember is that the OSI model is key to the whole Open Systems Interconnection effort, which was a way to standardise communication between computers. A good way to judge the success of that effort is that you are reading this using TCP/IP, which owes nothing at all to the OSI.

When I was studying for my first MCSE, under Ian Cunningham, I was taught a somewhat simpler model, having three layers. This is based on TCP/IP, and thus corresponds more to what we do in the real world. (I'm doing this from memory of around 14 years ago, so I apologise for any mistakes in advance).

The lowest layer is the Physical layer. This is the cable you plug in, or more likely these days, the basic wi-fi connection from your computer to the access point. That allows signals to move between computers, and without that, you haven't really got a network at all.

The middle layer is the Protocol layer. These days, the protocol layer is always TCP/IP. Now, TCP/IP is in fact two layers, but for the purposes of this explanation that doesn't really matter. TCP/IP defines network addresses on the Internet, usually one per connected device. The machine you're using now, whether it's a laptop or a smartphone, has an IP address, and that's how it talks to the Internet, and to this blog server.

The top layer is the Application layer. That defines what you're saying to the machine on the other end of the connection. HTTP is an application, and it's the way that computers send web pages back and forth. SMTP is another application, used for sending emails. And so on.

That's basically it. Obviously the whole process of how a web page gets to your computer is a little more complicated. However, this is a basic description of how your computer (or smartphone, or tablet, or…) connects to the Internet and gets information. I hope that helped.

Meanwhile, I'm off to learn those damn layers (may not be 100% true).

Giving The Defaults A Damn Good Leaving Alone

2011-10-08T13:32:00.000+01:00

OK, first up, I didn't invent the phrase "A damn good leaving alone", but I wish I had.

But I will admit that when it comes to software defaults, I usually leave them. This is especially the case for operating systems. I don't normally do much to a new laptop or desktop, apart from install the bare minimum of software that I need to use them. My laptop basically has no data on it at all apart from Dropbox and a few apps I've bought from the AppStore. If I feel the need to customise the heck out of something, I install a VM. (This might be why my VMs have roughly the life expectancy of a snot at a hanky convention (other metaphors are available)).

I have always been like this. I've worked in IT for years, which means working on tens of thousands of machines. It means changing laptops at least annually, if not more. In the four years I spent at Talis, I must have changed laptops six or seven times. This just means there's no point carefully honing each and every setting to millimeter-perfectness. Actually, it means working in a way that means I can pick up any machine and have at the task in hand immediately. My list of "must-have" software is quite short:

That's it.

So, when it came to OS 10.7 "Lion", I left the scroll behaviour alone. And I left LaunchPad, Mission Control, and all the other Lion-y weirdness just as it came, in the damn box. I am aware that there are great long lists of customisation options to fiddle with Lion… and I'm having none of it. I use the natural scrolling, and I've got used to it. In fact, I like it.

I can use any Mac, because I'm using the defaults. Same with Windows, same with Linux. I don't need to work out how to replicate my custom environment, because there isn't one. I will agree that for some people, they need their exquisitely-honed setup, but they're not me.

One small point, apart from the "use any machine" argument, is that Apple (and Microsoft, and others) all have lots of engineers, making mostly sensible decisions about the design of their software. As such, I think that I should think carefully before changing the defaults, because those defaults have been thought about carefully.

So, next time you set up a new machine, why not have a think about how little you need to customise it, rather than how much.

SuperUser

2011-10-08T13:24:00.000+01:00

As part of my strategy to get a new job (and cling to the remains of my sanity), I've started answering questions on SuperUser, part of the StackExchange network. I've managed to get quite far, and I'm having some fun. I'm basically working on the principle that the best way to learn about something is to try to teach someone else about it.

Why not join me at SuperUser?

External Memory

2011-09-26T20:06:00.000+01:00

One of the things I've ended up doing as I've been applying for jobs is technical tests. I've always wondered why employers put people through those technical tests. After all, all they do is check whether I can remember a few dozen facts that I can easily find elsewhere. One question that always comes up is the layers of the ISO 7-layer model. I may have learned that sometime around twenty years ago or so. Since then, I keep that knowledge safely in Google (here you go). I have never ever ever used it since.

So why do people ask this on technical tests? I have no idea. Another favourite is port numbers. People will ask "What port does such-and-such protocol run on?" Again, this is easy to find out, so easy that it isn't worth bothering to remember. Seriously. For some reason, people usually ask for HTTP, HTTPS, SMTP, SNMP, DNS, and one other one, like Kerberos or something. Some are easy, and some aren't. But whatever - you can easily Google this too, or if you're on a UNIX-family operating system, something like

% cat /etc/services | grep "^http"

should show the result you need. Here, that shows me:

http 80/udp www www-http # World Wide Web HTTPhttp 80/tcp www www-http # World Wide Web HTTP

And so on.

And people always ask me to put my iPad away, as "Googling isn't allowed".

The one and only time I had to help assess someone in an interview situation, I asked them to draw a diagram of a Citrix MetaFrame 1.8 system (yes, it was a while ago). The person I was talking to floundered uselessly for a while, jabbing the bit of paper with a pencil whilst mumbling incoherently. I graded that as a fail.

If I was going to ask someone to do a technical test, I'd let them Google as much as they want. I'd lend them a laptop, point them at the wireless, whatever. Google away. Because like it or not, Google is my memory for some things, and I wouldn't work in the real world without it.

(And yes, I did manage to fail a technical test. No, that's not why I'm writing this. Well, maybe a little bit).

IPod Divination

2011-09-24T10:08:00.000+01:00

Divination is the art of seeing in to the future. Since the Dawn of Time(tm) mankind has used many ways to predict the future. We've examined the entrails of sacred animals, looked at tea leaves, and read Gartner white papers. None of these methods have worked particularly well, but we persevered nonetheless.

Some predictions have worked better than others - I remember being astonished whe. I asked a Magic 8-ball what it thought of the then-new Office 2000. Unsurprisingly, and correctly, it replied "Outlook not so good".

But today, I can unveil a method that actually works. We call it iPod Divination, and the way it works is simple. We ogo out for a drive, then simply put an iPod on shuffle, then plug it into the car stereo, so we can both hear the music. Then, ask a question, and hit next track. The next song you hear should answer your question.

It's about as reliable as any other method of divination. After all, as Yogi Berra once said "Prediction is difficult, especially about the future".

Since When?

2011-09-23T10:02:00.000+01:00

As a result of going to a lot of interviews, I've ended up telling the story of how I decided on my career aged 11. So, just in case there's a couple of people left out there who haven't heard this, here's the story in much more detail. Consider it a wavy-lines powered journey to the long-lost past. It's not quite "A long time ago, in a galaxy far away..." Here goes.

When I was 11, my parents began sending my brother and I to summer camps. I know, it's all terribly middle class, but that's how we were then. We went to Millfield School, and spent a week there. The first time we went, we were enrolled on a course called "Gifted Child". I cringe with embarrassment about that to this day. On the course were my brother and I, and several of the kind of kids who could unironically describe themselves as "gifted". Since the only people my brother and I knew were each other, we stuck together. But then, the others were basically the kind of kid who strutted through life, banging on about their mighty brains. Even then, I thought that they could do with a swift dose of reality (oh, the irony). The course consisted of ten half-days, doing all kinds of activities. Three things stuck in my mind from that week:

The first thing I remember was the Biology module. We had to dissect a rat. My brother (who now works in sales) had entirely too much fun nailing small paws to a piece of wood and pinging various bits of rat giblet around the room. I, meanwhile, remember practicing my 'keeping my lunch where I'd just put it' technique on the fire escape. I snapped straight back to this when I smelled formaldehyde during Biology O-level at school, and even now I can bring to mind the contrast of a small, helpless paw, and my brother's inexpert hammering technique. The second thing was the module on economics. My brother wasn't enormously interested, so left me to it. We had some game to play about buying shares on the stock exchange with play money, and then seeing how they went. I won by about two orders of magnitude. I'm still interested in economics to this day, although owning some shares in Computacenter and Talis is about as much economics as I do these days.

The third thing - ah, that. The reason why we're here now. Half a day working on Commodore PETs. I think they were 4016s. My brother took one look at this activity, and went to sleep. I spent a little while learning BASIC programming, and I was hooked.

The logistics of the trip to Millfield were quite bonkers. It's only now as a parent that I realise what my Dad went through. Basically, my brother spent the weekend before Millfield at our Grandmother's, and I spent the weekend afterwards there. My Dad drove the two of us about the countryside for three weekends on the trot. Ouch. Now that I'm a Dad, I can appreciate his sacrifices, and how hard he worked for us. (And Dad, if you're reading this, I am repaying you, just as hard as I can. Ask your grandson!)

And so, following the epiphany that was touching a computer, I spent a week at my Grandmother's. Apparently I bent both of her ears through a full 180 degrees going on about computers. When my Dad arrived to collect me, my Grandmother took him aside and suggested that we needed to talk about this further. And so they did.

Next year, I went back and did a full module (five half-days) working on the then brand-new ZX-81s. Ah, those days. One whole kilobyte of storage (for anyone under about 30, that's about six text messages worth), no colour, two different shift keys, four different cursors, and Sinclair Research's bizarre method of entering programs by keywords. I was thrilled. My poor Grandmother received another ear-bashing about computers. So, when my Dad came to collect me this time, he received a stern set of instructions. "This child must have a computer. Buy it and send me the bill!". This, of course, was 1982, and so all of the cool kids had a BBC Micro. We got a Spectrum 48K. Did I mention we didn't have a colour telly? Dad had to buy a colour TV to go with our new colour computer! I was so excited that I woke my brother up at 3 AM to tell him that we must have got the computer because there was a colour TV!

I felt the excitement immediately. Just like with LEGO, the only limit was my imagination. I worked hard on that computer, writing all kinds of programs. I learned Z80 assembler, just to make stuff go faster. I built a game, a library to do proportionally-spaced text, and all kinds of stuff.

When I finally came to do O-level options at school, it was all a bit pointless. I knew then what I wanted to do, and I told the careers adviser so. He told me not to be so stupid, and assured me that no-one would ever make a job out of working with computers. He basically patted me on the head and told me that if I worked hard I could make a good accountant. That didn't kill the excitement - it made me more determined to prove him wrong.

The excitement still hasn't left. I still want to work with computers. If it wasn't my job, I'd fiddle with computers anyway. I want to build cool stuff, I want to continue doing the impossible, and I want to keep doing this while there's breath left in me.

I never managed to explain to my Grandmother what computers actually did. But she knew me well enough to know that computers were important to me. She bought the Spectrum, and later bought me a PC that I needed to do my University project on. I am here now because of that.

I'll end with one more comment: As always, on a Friday, I collected Red Demigod from nursery. A nursery nurse opened the door, looked at me, and laughed. I asked what on earth was the joke this time. She said that they'd been talking to the children about what Mommy and Daddy do. Red had apparently told everyone that Daddy's job was "Making poorly computers feel better". I can't think of a better way to describe what I do.

Accidental Neglect

2011-09-20T08:47:00.001+01:00

It's been quite difficult to just get brain space together to do any blogging. So, here's a quick few points that I'm going to try to expand on later.

Thanks to a friend, I seem to have found a bug to do with HTML entity processing in the Twitter iPhone client. I'm not sure how to report it, but I'll post here about how that goes.

I have put OS X 10.7 "Lion" on my desktop. I'll admit to being slightly disappointed with the name - I had hoped that after Leopard and Snow Leopard, I was hoping for "Clouded Leopard", or even "Cloudy with a hint of Leopard". Ah well. I'm slightly disappointed with the performance, but then again, I didn't do a clean install, and I am on the minimum 2 GB of memory. I have also noticed a couple of bugs, to do with how full screen apps behave. Apple has apparently shipped a couple of beta 10.7.2 builds, so I'll wait for that to ship, and report them if I can reproduce them on that. Next task is to work out how to do a clean install, then update my laptop. Again, I'll probably wait for 10.7.2 for that.

I am still job hunting. That's what has taken up so much of my time. I am thinking about what to do, but I will stay in IT. It's what I have wanted to do since I was 11, and it's still what I want to do now.

I have done some work with an old friend on a web site. It's not a secret new web service, but it's still been an interesting project to work on. You can see (warning, includes code I wrote) The Moroccan Market of Handicraft site for yourself, if you want, here. I'll definitely be blogging more on this soon.

- Contributed using BlogPress from my iPad

Extraverts are from Mars, Introverts are from Venus

2011-08-18T22:42:00.000+01:00

Or something like that.

As I may have hinted previously, I'm currently looking for a job. I'm finding the hardest part isn't what I had thought it might be.

I can cope with the constant rejection. After all, I used to go to school discos.

I can cope with the bizarre requests and hoops that need jumping through.

What is driving me start staring bonkers is being at home on my own all day. I am a mahoosive extravert. For me, being in a building on my own all day is horrible. It quite literally drives me bonkers. By contrast, Pink Goddess is an introvert. Now, I know at one level all about caring for your introvert but it's still difficult.

Here's hoping that this doesn't last too much longer, I'm not sure our walls can take much more climbing.

What are you listening to right now?

2011-08-12T09:25:00.001+01:00

What are you listening to right now?

Answer here

Proud Dad Moment

2011-08-09T12:19:00.001+01:00

You know you have taught well when someone you're talking to comes up with a better solution than the one you were trying to explain to them. I was trying to explain to Red Demigod that you could use an old laptop to make your own digital photo frame. I was trying to explain how you would get the data files on to it using something like STFP. That's when he looked at me oddly, and said: "Or, you could use Dropbox".

There was a brief moment of duh, on my part.

He's right. And that's how I would do it, if I was going to.

I am a proud Dad. And, apparently, a better teacher than I thought.

- Contributed using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Wolverhampton,United Kingdom

Wanted to call myself "sqrt(-1)" but it wasn't allowed.

2011-08-02T18:40:00.000+01:00

So Google+ insists on you signing up using your real name. This presents me a problem, because my real, legal name isn't the name I go by. As some people know, I go by my middle name, not my first name, and I always have. As such, I think I am within the rules, as an exception is allowed if you usually go by another name.

But (I like big butts, and I cannot lie), I'm best known as 'mauvedeity'. In fact, several times now I've met people who have no idea what my actual name is, and so I wanted to use 'mauvedeity' as my alias. Instead, G+ stripped it out of my Picasa account and put my real name in instead. That's so not what I wanted to happen.

Oh well, it's still better than Facebook.

- Contributed using BlogPress from my iPhone.

File Formats

2011-07-28T22:06:00.000+01:00

At the moment, I'm engaged in a painful process, involving much stress, trauma, and rejection. No, I'm not at a school disco, I'm looking for a new job.

One of the most annoying parts of this process is that almost all of the agencies and agency systems that you deal with insist on you producing all documentation by emailing them a Microsoft Word .DOC file. (Or, as in one very special case, I was asked to post some pieces of paper, but they had to be printed from Microsoft Word). Word is also a pain in other ways, much as I like it. Luckily, I have a wide choice of software to produce .DOC files. But most of it isn't compatible enough to assure unscrambled documents. And so, I'm stuck having to use exactly the right piece of sofware to produce the files.

It's at times like these that I have a lot of sympathy for open-source advocates.

Eicker Fanboi!

2011-07-28T21:37:00.008+01:00

Those are scissors. I know you knew that.

Those are actually second hand. I had them because I go and get a new pair that were exactly the same-those are worn out. Now, you might ask, why am I going on about a pair of scissors? Well, these are rather special scissors. I had to go to a specialist retailer who serves a specialist and discerning market (no, not the Apple Store).

These scissors cost a somewhat surprising £103. That is because these are hairdressing scissors. Pink Goddess will have these in her hands almost all the time she's at work. She needs to rely on them absolutely, she needs them to feel like part of her, and she needs to make damn sure she doesn't cut herself. As such, she needs exactly the right tool for the job. Poundland scissors won't do.

One of the Seven Habits is "Sharpen The Saw". But first, you need to get a saw, make sure it's the right saw, work out how to use it, and get used to using it. Then, and only then, you keep it sharp. To achieve, you need the right tools. We could have bought one hundred pairs of scissors at Poundland for that-but they wouldn't be the right tool for the job.

When I was younger, my Dad always advised me to watch someone who is really good at something, do that something. I learned a lot from that, but I didn't learn about the right tool for the job. That, I had to learn the hard way. And so, £103 worth of scissors. There is of course the £90 hairdryer, amongst other things.

Oh, and my iMac is also the right tool. And then there's a present I bought my brother recently...

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2011-07-06T00:33:00.000+01:00

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Put To Bed With Extreme Prejudice

2011-06-17T10:31:00.000+01:00

A while ago, I wrote (but never published) a post under the title of "You Don't Get To Choose When Your Business Model Takes A Dirt Nap". I didn't publish it then, because it seemed to hit too close to home.

Well, it hit. Yesterday, I and some colleagues of mine were officially notified that we are at risk of redundancy. I guess that being an infrastructure engineer in a company with no infrastructure was never going to be a sensible long-term bet.

However, I wasn't originally an infrastructure engineer. At Talis, I did infrastructure. Before that, I was a technical consultant, implementing the latest solutions for a wide range of customers. Before that, I was a programmer, building custom software for a range of environments and devices. And before that, I was 12. It's been a fun 30 years or so.

So, where now? Time for a new metamorphosis? I think so. Change is a part of who I am. Talis has changed me. Of course it has - I'm blogging this. I had never kept a diary before, let alone published it.

Before, I was all @GreySkyThinking. Now, this is inspiring me:

"Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men."
Johann von Goethe (source)

So: 2011, redundancy, life, whatever - bring it. I am ready.

Territorial Restrictions

2011-06-15T20:12:00.002+01:00

Earlier today, I found that there is a free audiobook available from Audible. It's Samuel L. Jackson reading a charming book called "Go the ---- to Sleep" link is NSFW. (see http://www.amazon.co.uk/Go-F-Sleep-Adam-Mansbach/dp/0857862650 [NSFW]). Don't bother searching for the audiobook if you live in the UK, though, because:

This Audible Audio Edition is not available in your area.

As such, this is just a long-winded way of saying this:

"Our business is just so damn awesome, we don't need your money, and we're quite happy to throw that in your face."

OK, no problem. I live in the UK, which is quite literally stuffed with hopeless retailers. I have lost count of the times I've gone out shopping, armed with money, and come back, still with my money unspent.

So now I get to use an international, world-wide network, that won't serve me because my credit card lives in the wrong place. Oh well, I'll just go buy something else.

Why I Am The Luckiest Person In The World (And You Aren't)

2011-05-17T19:51:00.001+01:00

Earlier tonight, delicious smells of cooking filled our kitchen, as Pink Goddess was, well, cooking. I mused out loud that what we needed was an extractor fan. Pink Goddess replied, illustrating elegantly why she remains the world's most wonderful citizen:

"I think that once you've liked tractors, you'll always like tractors!"

Truly, I am a lucky person.

- Contributed using BlogPress from my iPad

Broken Link

2011-05-17T11:16:00.001+01:00

This link is broken. Please don't click on it, you'll make the kittens sad. Thank you. (In case you're wondering why I would post a broken link, it's because I'm testing something using wget. Thanks for listening, your patience is appreciated.

I'm The Parent Of A Teenager!

2011-05-14T21:07:00.001+01:00

I'm the parent of a teenager! I'm not quite sure what happened there-I'm pretty sure that I was the proud parent of a little boy, but I guess that was a while ago. In honour of that fact, I thought I'd present a few things from the point of view of a teenager. Some of these facts may be a little scary. Consider yourself warned in advance:

Technology

Everyone has always had a computer, usually a laptop. Schoolwork and homework have always been done on computers. Wikipedia has always had all of the answers.

Everyone has always had a mobile phone. In ancient times, when everything was black and white,people used to ring up buildings to see if the person they wanted was in there. Cars have always had phones in them too.

You play video games at home, not at an arcade.

Music has always been digital. Television has always been digital too.

Cameras have always been digital.

To save a document, you click the button with the weird thing on it (yes, he'd never seen a floppy disc)

Cars have always had electric windows, power steering, sat nav, and remote central locking.

Digital watches are retro.

Other

There has always been a congestion charge in London.

Shopping and banking have always been on-line.

Dr. Who has always been the scariest programme on telly - and The Doctor is Christopher Ecclestone.

Well-known classical music artists include "The Beatles" and a man called "Pink Floyd".

Elton John's "Candle in the Wind" is about Princess Diana (who has always been dead)

Until last year, he had always lived under a Labour government.

We have always been at war. (With Terror, not Eastasia. Or is it Eurasia, I forget).

So there you have it. It's a shock, but I think I can cope.

In Which I Confess Disappointment, Despair, But Not Surprise

2011-05-06T17:00:00.000+01:00

The story that Nadine Dorries MP has tabled a Private Member's Bill calling for sex education in schools to include discussion of abstinence, but only for girls, isn't new. I know, but I've been busy.

Not unnaturally, I wondered exactly what the heck this was supposed to achieve. After all, the US has had abstinence-only sex education for years, and it hasn't worked.

I can speak with some authority on this. No, not because I'm a teenage girl, but because I went to a Roman Catholic boys school for a while (I'm not allowed to name it). Our sex education was handled by the Biology master, who happily discussed sexual reproduction. Of trees. Well, that was really bloody helpful at a disco, wasn't it! To all the girls who encountered me at a disco when I was a teenager - I wasn't being rude, I was trying to encourage bees to pollinate me. Thanks to enlightened parents, I figured it all out later, although a combination of boys' schools and a CS degree meant that I had no need of the traditional "put a condom on a banana lessons" until an embarrassingly advanced age. Things have improved since then, of course - now I share my life with a supermodel.

Actually, that's a thought - how do you put a condom on a banana? Perhaps I should ask the next 7-year old I see.

Of course, this situation doesn't surprise me at all. The attitude seems to be that it's all the woman's fault, and that we should blame them. The oddest part for me is the concept that it's fine for boys to have sex, but not girls. Who are the boys supposed to have sex with? As always, Pink Goddess, beacon of reasonableness, came up with an answer - this is clearly another assault of the Gay Mafia we keep hearing about!

If It's OK With You, That Is

2011-05-05T18:42:00.000+01:00

OK, I get it. We killed the bad guy.

I remember the start of the War On Terror. I remember having to explain to a frightened Red Demigod that the place with the Bad Man in it that they bombing was a long way away. Then I had to explain to him that when Daddy is working a long way away, it's not as far as Baghdad, and so Daddy is safe. I got his children's atlas of the world out, and showed him where we were, where Manchester is, and where Iraq is in relation. Then I held him as we cried, realising that some daddies and little boys would be killed, and that meant they wouldn't see each other any more. He wouldn't let go of me until he fell asleep that night. In the morning I found him in my bed again,
as I instinctively held him tight.

So now I can tell him that the bad guy is dead. And we're all safe again, and everything can go back to normal. Only it won't. We paid a huge price to get here. We piled up dead daddies and mommies and kids almost higher than we could count. On both sides.

We fought so hard for our culture that we destroyed it in the process. We trashed our civil liberties, we forgot who we are.

So, is it done now? Every time I think of Pink Goddess and Red Demigod, I feel the sharp, powerful, overwhelming love of a husband and father. I know other people feel it too.

Can we stop killing people, please? Can we put their lives and ours back together? Can we make some progress on building that better world we all need? Please?

Kindle

2011-04-28T18:59:00.001+01:00

The other night, Pink Goddess hinted that I might like to check out Amazon's Kindle app. Well, I say "hinted". There may have been some suggestions that if I didn't, from that moment on, I'd spend my time microwaving meals for one, while waiting for the Grim Reaper to bestow a merciful release upon me.

(Contrary to popular belief, that was a subtle hint. A less subtle hint would include the above, but extend also to suggestions that my mortal remains would eventually be discovered by grieving estate agents, by then reduced to scraps of skin, shards of bone, and a pair of incredibly hairy palms.)

And so, uxorious as I am, I reluctantly shut down my game of "A Monster Ate My Homework" and downloaded it. I wasn't expecting much, but I have to say that I was most impressed. At least on the iPad, the reading experience is excellent, and there are a wallet-worrying range of books available. I think it's joining my must-have list 'o' stuff.

Of course, there is one downside - unlike a genuine paperback, you wouldn't sit on a beach, covered in sunscreen, armed with an iPad. But this is missing the point. You don't swat flies with a rolled-up laptop, either. The time I'd have to read, I'd be in the car, or in a building, and that's when I'd want this around. I'm also a big fan of apps that can sync through the cloud. Kindle keeps track of your bookmarks and highlights in Amazon's data centres, so you can move between all of your devices, and your bookmarks follow you. It's reading done right.

It's also a sign that the publishing industry isn't following the music industry's stupid mistakes. Books that take advantage of new media, sensibly priced and delivered frictionlessly. This feels like the future arriving.

I'm a fan. Five stars, Amazon!

FOAF-RDF

2011-04-22T18:34:00.000+01:00

OK, I've dipped my toe in the waters of RDF - I used Leigh Dodds' excellent FOAF-a-matic to create my FOAF file.

As a note, if you have a Google Sites site, like I do, you can't upload the file directly - you have to create a 'filing cabinet' page and upload the file into that. As such, my foaf file isn't in the root directory of the site, it's inside a folder.

90 Day Cafe

2011-04-20T21:41:00.000+01:00

The world's most awesome cupcakes ever come from the 90 Day Cafe in Birmingham. I don't normally like cupcakes but these are amazing me with their sweet treatyness.

It is entirely possible that Pink Goddess likes them too. I'm guessing here, but I think the shrieks of delight when I turn up with some might just imply that.

Ontologies

2011-04-20T21:27:00.001+01:00

So, apparently these ontology things are a bit important.

Now, I come from the distressingly old-school world of relational databases. For those who haven't spent many happy hours grovelling around with tables and joins, the basic design of a relational database is a rectangular table. Each table describes one set of entities that the database is talking about, and useful processing happens by joining the tables together with queries. The overall design of the database is referred to as a schema. The data is useless without understanding the schema. For instance, what does column "G" mean in table "tblPeople", and how does it relate to other data in the database? These are questions that the schema will answer. [Sidebar: This is why many cloud apps let you download your data. All you get is a bunch of CSV files with seemingly random values in. They don't give you the schema - that would be useful.]

Now, the problem with database schemas is that they don't have any meaning outside the database. So, it becomes very hard to re-use that data, because you need to understand the schema.

As such, if you're going to share data, you have to agree first on a shared way to talk about that data. Essentially, you have to find some way to have a schema that everyone agrees on. That's what the ontology is - it's a shared vocabulary for describing data. Two entirely separate applications can share data, if they agree on enough of the ontology so that the data is meaningful everywhere.

As such, FOAF is one such ontology. Other ontologies are available.

I'm currently staring at a music ontology. That's the best fit for the work I'm doing at the moment. Having said that, I've made my own FOAF profile, and when I work out how to get it validated, I'll post it somewhere.

There's something missing here

2011-04-20T20:10:00.000+01:00

There is supposed to be a blog post here. Probably an episode of the Linked Data 101 series. I'm not sure quite what happened here. Better luck next time.

A Welcome Return

2011-04-19T21:13:00.000+01:00

There's this web comic called Planet Karen. It's surprisingly great. Actually, it's quite awesome. I love it. And, after a year or so of downtime, it's back! Yaay!

It makes me happy. "Check", as I believe the young people say these days, "it out!".

Err...

2011-04-19T20:49:00.000+01:00

This is rather worrying.

"Phone Hacking"

2011-04-09T20:03:00.000+01:00

Apparently there's this thing called "phone hacking". I wondered what that was, so I investigated.

It turns out that "phone hacking" refers to the practice of accessing someone else's voicemail. Er. I'm assuming that their voicemail is the same as mine. It has a passcode attached to it. So, change the damn default passcode. Simple as that.

Database Schema

2011-04-09T16:51:00.000+01:00

Last time, I said that a music schema couldn't easily be crammed into the relational database model's rectangles. A certain @sharkastic correctly pointed out that of course you could fit music data into a relational database. As such, I'm happy to show you MusicBrainz' database schema. I know what that lot means, and as such, I'd just emphasise that I meant "easily".

Of course, this isn't the only way to look at this stuff. If you're a big fan of the 'My brain hurts' look, you could check out another way of representing this kind of data - Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records, or FRBR to its friends. The guys at musicontology have extended this approach to music, and here's what they came up with. I must say, this is so underpants-dampeningly horrible that I gave up here.

However, I was here saved by Rob Styles, who'd blogged about "Bringing FRBR down to Earth". A timely intervention? No, he wrote that in November 2009.

So, no FRBR ("FRBR? I hardly knew her!") for me. I'm still wondering, but for now I'm going to use the MusicBrainz API to fetch useful data about artists, tracks, and so on. I'll model the data I have, and link out to MusicBrainz. Luckily, there's a relationship between MB and the BBC's music pages, so I can link to both for the price of one. Woo!

At the moment, it's a lovely day out, so there won't be much more data linkyness happening right now. Maybe tomorrow, if it rains.

Linked Data 101

2011-04-07T18:26:00.000+01:00

Following the divestment of the Library division at Talis, the company feels much more focussed on the future. This is a good thing, as it frees up brain space for me to learn about linked open data and the related technologies. I figured that I'd blog about what I was learning along the way, for two reasons. One, of course, that sharing is almost always a good thing. The other reason is that I'd have something to review as I go. Of course, right now, I don't know what I'm talking about, so some of what I say here may be wrong. If I find later that I made a mistake, I'll correct it here, so it's more of a record of what I know.

And so, I started the learning process in earnest, in my usual style - I offered to make coffee for some brainy chaps I know who know lots about this stuff. I got a lot of good advice, but, as always, the best advice was something I should have known for myself - "Just Do It".

And so I applied myself to the task. I figured I'd start with something I know about, which is music. I should point out that I can't play an instrument or carry a tune. On the other hand, I have a 44 GB iTunes database, which must count for something - I have spent literally hours organising music on my iPods (which are known as the big and little Gloom-A-Trons, apparently).

I have spent years working with relational databases, and I know from experience the strengths and weaknesses of the relational database model. One especial problem with the model shows up when you start looking at music. The obvious model for modelling this as a parent-child relationship ought to be simple:

Artist --one or more--> Album -- one or more --> Track

Sadly not. The reason it doesn't work is because you can have compilation CDs, which aren't associated with a particular artist, and where each track has a different artist. So, straight away, this data model doesn't work. My next thought was to base everything off the Album, but you can't do that, because you end up with a bletcherous schema with many-to-many relationships everywhere (which is bad).

Ultimately, this isn't how to do it. This data clearly can't easily be crammed into rectangles, which the relational data model forces on you. So, I need a new approach. And so I decided to have at modelling it as linked data. How hard could it be? Let's find out.

Mothers Day 2011

2011-04-03T12:35:00.001+01:00

Just to say

"Happy Mothers Day"

Well, that, and a quick other thought. On Mothers Day, I always remember my grandmother. She spent a lot of time, effort, and money on my education, as she believed that a good education was the key to everything. She often said that learning to read gave you the world. And she was right.

She believed in me completely. She never really understood what computers were, but she knew that it was important to me to do what I was doing with them. She paid for me to go on the summer camp where I discovered computers, then sat through my bending her earholes about how amazing computers are. She bought my first computer-a ZX Spectrum-in 1982, and the colour telly we needed to go with it. Of course, by then, she'd taught me to read and write, to spell, and how death was too good for people with dodgy grammar.

In 1988, I went off to University (well, Polytechnic). One day, I was phoning home, and so I decided to phone her. We had a chat about this and that. Then I tried to phone home. It was busy. About an hour later, I finally got though. It turns out that my grandmother had immediately phoned my parents, and had spent that hour telling them how wonderful I was. (Clearly, I agreed!).

In 1991, I phoned her from California, where I was at a conference. She immediately phoned my parents, insisting that she was there in Camberley to welcome me home from "the other side of the world".

By 1993, she was starting to show signs of the dementia that took her from us, but she still cried tears of joy when I told her that five years hard work had paid off, and I had my degree. I'd beaten my father, too - we both got 2(i) Hons, but I had a publication!

She died in 1995, still not sure what these computer things were, but having bought me both of the computers that I'd owned from new, and fiercely believing that it was important that I carried on working with them.

One of the things I most with I could change is that she will never meet Pink Goddess and Red Demigod. She'd have adored both of them.

I will never forget her.

P.S.: Hi, Mum!

- Contributed using BlogPress from my iPad

Rastamouse (Part 2)

2011-03-31T22:32:00.001+01:00

After my first post about Rastamouse, a colleague showed me Tom Ilube's comments on it. He basically says that it's a bad idea, because it'll just expand the vocabulary of playground taunts.

He has a point here. He correctly notes

Whenever you get a new, cool black character on TV (or a white character pretending to be a black character) then as sure as night follows day you will get white kids in playgrounds renaming their black friends accordingly

Yes, the kids shouting that kind of stuff generally aren't the smartest, and probably need a little prompting, but that isn't the main issue.

For me, the main issue is What is the alternative?. If we do as Tom suggests, and get rid of Rastamouse, and presumably all of the other cool black characters on TV, we go back to the bad old days of invisibility. I'd rather not be invisible. I'd like to see faces like mine (not exactly like mine, obviously, or I could just look in a mirror and save the TV license fee) represented. And represented in an unselfconscious, positive, and appealing way. Like Tamarind books. Or, like Rastamouse.

- Contributed using BlogPress from my iPad

Edit: removed spurious text from above first paragraph, 3/4/2011

Good Advice

2011-03-31T22:18:00.001+01:00

A little while ago, I had some good advice from a (now ex-)colleague. Basically, it goes a little like this:

When trying to fix a problem with something complicated, make sure that the problem really is the complicated thing, and not something simple.

I will try to bear this in mind in the future.

It came up in the context of trying something rather astonishing with a UNIX machine, SMB client software, a Windows server, and some scripting. It wasn't working, and so he began digging about trying to find what the problem could be. He called me in when it was looking like some kind of firewall issue to do with the different networks we had had around here.

Luckily (or we'd probably be there now), I remembered something of the history of the system. It had been moved from one network to another, but the sysop who'd done that had left a little bit of config in there, and hence the server wasn't sending information on the network correctly. That done, all is now well. It also fixed a couple of other complicated problems that I'd punted on fixing while we sorted other things.

I'll write a horribly technical post about what the problem was if I get around to it, but it was something that I should have checked (and didn't).

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That Well-Known Racist, Rastamouse!

2011-03-05T17:01:00.000Z

Apparently, Rastamouse is racist. Now, this came as something of a non-surprise to me. Allow me to explain.

On the face of it, Rastamouse is a charming children's TV character. He's a mouse, and with a name like that, you'd be right in guessing that he's a brown mouse. with his friends, the Easy Crew, he does normal mouse things, such as solving mysteries, playing in a band and skateboarding. Oh, and eating cheese.

All good so far. So what on earth could have caused such an outburst of cranial vein-throbbage amongst the "I'm not racist but..." crowd?

It's the Ginger beer, isn't it? As we all know, Ginger beer is made by rounding up those of the strawberry blond community and sending them off to the presses to be turned into Rastamouse's favourite drink!

No, it's quite simple. There aren't any white mice. So, therefore, it's racist. Because somehow, all the other programmes, the ones that don't have minority representation, don't count, but this one does.

I first encountered this fairly early on with Tamarind, about twenty years ago. Apparently, making books with positive images of black people is racist unless you put some white people in too. You know. In charge. Like always.

- Contributed using BlogPress from my iPhone.

Book Review: "Zilombo"

2011-03-05T10:21:00.000Z

I'm always a bit skeptical of "young adult" fiction. That's probably because the last time I read any, it was Wilbur Smith's tales of well-bred White people bravely shooting fleeing Aborigines in the back while stealing their land.

However, Tamarind's efforts in this area should be different. And I have to say I wasn't disappointed with "Zilombo", by S P Gates. It's the story of three children, helped by a mysterious Chief Inspector, fighting an ancient monster called Zilombo. Like all Tamarind books, it features strong characters, front and centre in the plot, and beautifully depicted. There is a variety of ethnicity described, but it's all done unselfconsciously - in fact, the plot couldn't work without the characters being as they are. And what a plot! The story blazes along, challenges are overcome, people become more than they were, and eventually the quest is a succeed.

I have a soft spot for "strangeness in a city" stories, and this setting contrasts Zilombo the monster and a modern city superbly. Even the way that Mizz Z the Chief Inspector contrasts with the city is described believably and warmly. Mizz Z is a fantastic character, thoroughly believable despite the seeming contradiction of tribal dress, phone, and laptop. The children are well described, rounded characters, and aren't there just to give the adults a background to play against.

Overall, I really enjoyed it. A page-turner from first to last, and I was genuinely disappointed when I finished it. Having said that, the cliff-hanger was well done, and left me thinking "bring on the next book, I can't wait!"

I recommend it without hesitation! It's tagged 9+, which I certainly am, but I'd recommend it happily to anyone.

ISBN 978-1-848-53051-5

Technical Debt

2011-02-18T17:50:00.001Z

The film "The Full Monty" opens with two guys struggling for balance on top of a car that's slowly sinking into a canal. Another man, on the towpath, gives them a look. We know he's thinking "How did you get to there?" No-one plans to end up in that kind of massive cock-up, but somehow it happens. One way it can happen is by accumulating too much technical debt (this is not an exhaustive list).

I have spent much of 2010-2011 in removing technical debt from the systems where I work. Technical debt is an interesting term, used often in programming, but not so much in other contexts. When I heard it, though, it immediately struck me as the perfect description of what we've been doing.

Essentially, technical debt is borrowing against the future. Like real debt, it accumulates interest, and restricts you in the future. Any time you say "I'll fix this later", you're creating technical debt. This isn't always bad-we have been right up against the bleeding edge of the possible for a while, and we have made some decisions that basically are incurring technical debt. However, as we did it, we did it in the knowledge that we really really will pay it back. Just like our predecessors did.

We really mean it this time! And one way I know is because we are now consciously storing debt, rather than just fixing stuff. Eyes on the prize-we are making progress. More news as it fails to break.

- Contributed using BlogPress from my iPad

A Sorry Tail of Woe

2011-02-14T16:31:00.001Z

So, I was cutting a strip off the roll of sticky plasters to wrap up the scratches I got off the cat so the cleaning stuff I needed to use to clean muddy pawprints off everything wouldn't get in the cuts. Of course, once I'd cut the bit I needed I had to put everything away sharpish so the cat didn't get in the cupboard. I managed it, only to find that the cat had knocked the bit I cut down the back of the cooker.

So, round 2. Everything back out, cut another bit, quickly wrap up the scratch, turn round - the cat's in the cupboard. Bother.

In the end I grabbed the nearest cat toy and threw it somewhere. The cat streaked out of the cupboard after it. So all I had to do was put back all the stuff the cat had knocked over and congratulate myself in a job well done.

Until I nearly fell over treading in the damn cat toy, that is.

Darn it, I hate agreeing with everyone

2011-01-17T21:44:00.001Z

Oh, it chafes me worse than sandpaper underpants, but "The King's Speech" was excellent*. That will be all.

(Pink Goddess agrees!)

It's all about...

2011-01-17T16:39:00.002Z

Well, it's not all about me. Here's a couple of causes I believe in. I want to share them with you.

First, One Month Before Heartbreak. I'm sure you've heard about our new Conservative overlords slashing all kinds of public services, but this is about the impact this will have on disabled people. I have had a few accidents and a few more near misses in my time, and if I'd been less lucky, any one of those could have been the instant that left me disabled. One Month is about the consultation to reform (read 'remove') Disability Living Allowance. If you didn't know, it's basically Government help to allow people with disabilities to live. It pays for modified cars, assistive devices, and a range of other things that help people work, and indeed live. I have always thought that the way you can measure people, and societies of people, is how they look after people that need some assistance. By this measure, Britain is getting less and less civilised. See the blog above, see Twitter, and think.

Second, the It Gets Better campaign. This is about helping young gay people survive. Again, it's about supporting people who are different. Please, check the site out, and maybe spare a thought for someone who is in that situation.

Please, share your thoughts below.

BYOC Considered Harmful

2011-01-17T16:34:00.001Z

Someone I know forwarded me a link to a story on the BBC about the growing trend of employers allowing staff to bring their own computers to work. I personally think this is a bad idea, but because of who sent it, I thought I should expand on that just a little.

From the article:

You are at work. Your computer is five years old, runs Windows XP. Your company phone has a tiny screen and doesn't know what the Internet is.
Idling at home are a snazzy super-fast laptop, and your own smartphone is barred from accessing work e-mail.

Well, now. That sounds stupid, doesn't it. And it probably would be. But why?

Essentially, it's this. If your employer doesn't value you enough to get you the tools you need to do your job, then there is something wrong. You'd object if your hairdresser lunged at your head with a knife and fork - so why struggle with poor-quality tools?

Just like the move from company cars to car allowances, or self-service tills in supermarkets, it's all about companies pushing cost and risk onto people, and away from themselves. Company laptops are expensive to buy, expensive to look after, and almost uninsurable. So, if a company can ditch a whole load of expensive assets and the associated risk, then they'll be all over that like the proverbial cheap suit. After all, it's not all gravy. You, as a person, get an allowance - which you pay tax on. Then you buy a machine, and pay VAT on it. Then you need to buy an extended warranty for it - from the article again:

Staff taking advantage of the scheme must buy a three-year service contract.

Then, you get to get to use it how the company decides, with any security software they decide you need. And you do with it as you're told. Was it worth it? I think not.

Last word from the article:

"He went out and purchased himself a brand new Mac. He was very happy to get the device, and the company was very happy to not have it on their books."(emphasis mine)

There is a better way - a company that values its staff, and provides the tools its staff need to do the job. Why not see how that works?

"The Curious Incident of The Mouse in the Night-Time"

2011-01-11T02:04:00.001Z

Damn cat.

Why the App Store is going to work

2011-01-03T12:59:00.005Z

So Apple's announced an App Store for OS X computers. And, predictably, there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth, denunciations of the whole thing, and much Chicken Little-style bemoaning of the future. All wrong. Here's why:

It's an additional way to get software onto your machine, not the only way.

There is literally masses of software available for the Mac now. Not as much as for Windows, I grant you, but there are several big names behind the Mac now. Like the BBC (scroll), Lego, and Oracle. Much of the most exciting software these days is built for Linux, and thus is an easier port to the Mac than Windows. It's been a long time since I have had a problem where I can't do something for lack of software. Apple simply is not going to break this - it's one of the Mac's most killer features.

Free Dev Tools For All!

So, Linux comes with free dev tools (you might have to install the build-essential package). Mac OS X comes with Xcode and friends, although you'll have to install it. It also comes with Automator, which is simply jaw-droppingly good. Windows comes with... uh, remind me. Oh yeah, no dev tools at all apart from a seriously good scripting engine. Apple isn't going to break this either.

There are things that are computers and things that aren't

This, for me, is the main reason. This is why I said the iPad would have a dock connector. The iPod Touch/iPhone/iPad family, fundamentally, aren't computers, and are better for being things that are not-computers. The other things, laptops and desktops, they are computers. They don't have dock connectors. The App Store is coming to the Mac from the iDevices because it worked there. It is an addition, not a replacement.

So, why this?

Indulge me, briefly, while I mention my favourite computer user. When Pink Goddess first came into my life, she had a Windows PC. I looked it over for her, and deleted a few things she didn't need, and generally tuned it up. She'd managed to install Incredimail (an utterly blecherous email client), and a couple of on-line chat apps. Total apps, three. She had no idea how to update them, or what to do if they had problems. Oh, and she never actually paid for them, as they were free downloads. In the case of Incredimail, it just nagged you to buy add-ons.

Fast forward to today. Today she's on her third iPhone. She has listed on her machine 181 iPhone apps, and 27 iPad/iPhone universal apps. That's 208 apps for her phone. (Since you ask, the corresponding figures for me are 99 iPhone, 29 universal, and 10 iPad-only, for a total of 138). That's out of a total of about 400,000 apps (via asymco).

Now, assuming that she paid 59p for about half of them, there's £50 right there. I'd actually say she's spent more, and if I had to guess, I'd guess about £100. Right there, that's quite a lot of money. This is why software writers will use the store. I'm sure that all of the great open-source software will continue, but this will be an easier way to sell software to people.

Need another killer reason?

One-click updates of all of my apps at once;
Monetisation is already there
Distribution is there already

I'm sure there are more, but all I can say is that if I was in the software business, I'd be there. Roll on the 6th!

Comments? Flames? Demands for cups of tea? Bring it on!

An Offer

2010-12-29T09:19:00.000Z

Due to some kind of hideous present mix-up, I have two copies of "The God Delusion", by Richard Dawkins.

So, here's an open offer. I will swap it for a religious text of your choice. I will read the religious text if you read the God Delusion. I'll then blog about what I learned and what I think, and if you do, I'll link to it here. I reckon this is a chance for two people to see things from the other's point of view. The first person to come find me (or get in touch somehow) gets to choose the religious work. Please note that I'd need an English translation.

I'll also promise to publish all the (non-spam) comments I get. I get almost no comments, so that's not going to be hard.

This is a serious offer - I'm genuinely interested to see what I will find out.

Advice

2010-12-28T22:19:00.000Z

People often ask me for advice, and when they do, this is what I say:

Work like it's what you always wanted to do; love like you've never been hurt, but remember how it feels, so that you don't hurt anyone; and drive like every other road user is trying to kill you.
Always remember that if you're being paid to do what you'd have done anyway, you're lucky.
Even kittens have claws, and the kids will choose your nursing home.
It is easier to get forgiveness than permission.
If you're waiting for empowerment, you're doing something wrong.
Spend more time with people who love you - no-one ever died wishing they'd spent more time at work. However, also spend a little time with people that hate you, it can be quite instructive.
Pay close attention when someone says "Hmm, that's odd" - that's when the most interesting things happen.
Try, try again, then ask for help.
When you can, watch someone who is really good at something, do that thing. Learn from it.
Dream often. You can't succeed beyond your wildest dreams if you haven't had any dreams. Make them wild while you're at it.
Avoid stress - it's looking for you, no sense in being an easy target.
Smile more.
Pull faces at small children.
It's easier to annoy with a gramme of style than a kilo of substance. Where possible, use plenty of both.
Pursue knowledge. It will try to get away, but the chase is good exercise.
Like underpants, minds need to be changed occasionally.
Always take time out to smell the flowers, admire the views, and sharpen your tools

By the time I get to the end of the list, they're usually staring at me, all confused. It turns out that what they wanted was advice on what computer to buy. However, I still win in that case, because they dare not ask me again!

Happy Christmas

2010-12-25T19:48:00.001Z

Title says it all, really!

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The Hampster Wheel of Being Needed

2010-12-15T18:56:00.001Z

Years ago, I drove for my job. I'd cover around 35,000 miles a year in the service of my (then) Evil Paymasters(tm). I got very familiar with the feeling of miles unrolling under me, and I called the horizon my home.

I don't do this any more, but some days the life I share with Pink Goddess has started to feel similar. However, I'm no longer covering those miles physically, and the ribbon is gone. Here to replace it is a different feeling, one that I didn't have a name for at first. Very recently, a colleague, one I value for their insight and perspective, mentioned "The Hampster Wheel of Being Needed". Words are the bricks of thinking, and now I can see where I am.

It's easy to get here, and hard to get back out again. The thing that will save me now is that my home is no longer the horizon. My home now is with Pink Goddess and Red Demigod, and the journey now has an end, a place I can call home.

Now I just have to make sure I don't wear myself out on the wheel.

- Contributed using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Robert Jones Way,Shrewsbury,United Kingdom

Bye, Firefox!

2010-12-14T15:47:00.000Z

OK, I'm not really ditching Firefox (especially since I'm using it now). But as a Mac user, I'm finding Safari 5 much more compelling. My biggest reason to ditch Firefox is the utterly miserable RSS support. I use RSS a lot. I'm quite a big fan of it. After Safari's excellent implementation, Firefox simply fails miserably at it. I even installed "Sage", an RSS extension, but that was, if anything, worse. I could never figure out how to add a new feed to it.

How do people work like this?

I looked at some others, including RockMelt (requires Facebook, an invite from someone you know, and an explanation). Why would I want to litter up Chrome's famously clean UI? Bleh.

So now, at work at least, it's Safari for me. I plan to use Firefox only for the Firefox-specific addons I have, which are Amazon ElasticFox and S3Fox (cloud computing management tools). More news as I see how I get on.

"Writing for the Web" Workshop

2010-12-14T11:55:00.001Z

I know, it sounds like you drag something you wrote into a room, and someone kicks the paragraphs, adjusts some of your sentences, tightens here and there, and then gives you a pass certificate. But that's not quite what happened.

Zach Beauvais offered us a chance to do a writing workshop with Gabriel Smy, and so naturally I jumped at the chance. And so, armed with only a cheerful smile (and iPhone, laptop, notebook, pen, and coffee), I showed up at the appointed time. I wasn't really sure what to expect. Whatever it was, it wasn't a cheerful-looking chap and a slide saying "How to Write Good".

We introduced ourselves, and mentioned some of our writing highlights. Then we got onto the main story of the day, which was the actual useful tips. There followed much great content, which I'll have skim over, as otherwise this blog post would make your eyes hate you.

I took three main things away from the event:

Pretend you're a writer;
My utter hatred of passive sentences isn't just blind prejudice;
You're allowed to despise people who use 'leverage' as a verb, and who aren't talking about corporance finance.

There was lots more good stuff. We learned about the real meaning of the phrase 'hard-working' (protip: if you're reading this, it probably isn't you). We learned to eschew excessive prolixity.

If I had to repeat one piece of information, then this would be it: "Be Useful". Because, after all, all writing is communication, and if you're failing at communicating, then you're failing.

During the discussions, I made reference to a couple of things. I have to say, I'd assumed that these were well-known, but I think it shows that 'well-known' doesn't mean that everyone knows. The first is the Cluetrain Manifesto. This is where I first learned about concepts like "markets are conversations", and the bits I knew about writing for business. When I looked it up again to send the link to Gabriel, I was stunned to find that it dates from 1999. The other is probably the best book I've ever seen about writing to persuade: David Ogilvy's "Confessions of an Advertising Man". Even if you've never heard of David Ogilvy, you've seen his work. (Quick test: what soap is 25% moisturiser? Yes, that's him, in the mid '60s). I shared those with Gabriel, and recieved gracious thanks in return.

Read him, follow him, and write, dammit!

My 3

2010-11-29T16:12:00.004Z

Prompted by @Linn Graves' post here, I've done my 3's.

Three Jobs I've had
1. Computer Consultant
2. Dustman
3. Cottage Packer

Three Places I've lived
1. Oxford, UK
2. Hatfield, UK
3. Camberley, UK

Three favourite drinks
1. Black coffee
2. Proper beer
3. Coke

Three TV shows that I watch
1. Top Gear
2. Come Dine With Me
3. QI
(Special shout out to Radio 4's "I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue", which is my favourite broadcast entertainment ever!)

Three places I've been
1. St. George's, Grenada, West Indies
2. Dublin, Ireland
3. Berlin, Germany

Three of my favourite foods
1. Lasagne
2. Chicken Balti
3. Chicken in black bean sauce

Three friends I think (hope) will respond
1. mmmmmrob
2. kiyanwang
3. Pink Goddess

Three of my favorite colors
1. Purple
2. Mauve
3. Lilac

Three of my favorite types of candy
1. Mint Imperials
2. Parma Violets
3. Refreshers

Three things I'm looking forward to
1. Seeing Pink Goddess
2. Seeing Red Demigod
3. Seeing my nephews and niece

Three Things that are ALWAYS by My side
1. My iPhone
2. My keys
3. My watch

Three things in my car right now
1. My niece and nephew's baby seats
2. Some bottles of water
3. Quite a lot of dirt

Three things I did today
1. Drove
2. Looked after my niece and nephew
3. Watched the snow

It's Cold!

2010-11-26T11:48:00.003Z

My name is mauvedeity, and I am a complete and utter wuss when it comes to low temperatures. At the moment it's 17 degrees in our office due to central heating failure. As far as I'm concerned, there is only one option lower than 17 degrees, and I call it 'death'.

I'm hoping it warms up, but failing that I will be just quietly slumping into a coma. If you see me in the office, please prop warm things up on me.

Hoping for a Guest Post

2010-11-16T22:47:00.001Z

I've persuaded the lovely Pink Goddess to do a guest post. She's agreed, but suggested that we might like to ask some questions which she can answer. My question is the old favourite "Why do little old ladies have blue hair?", but feel free to ask other hair-related questions in a comment, and I'll pass them on.

Here's hoping that we get some great questions.

- Contributed using BlogPress from my iPad

Neglected, but not forgotten

2010-11-16T15:50:00.001Z

I haven't written anything here for a long while. It's mainly due to being surpassingly busy, both at work and at home. Funnily, owning more devices that I can blog from hasn't helped much. In fact, strange as it sounds, spending less time driving has meant that I've spent less time thinking. It's something of a shame, but if I'm not driving, I'm generally doing something. That means that I don't have time to think.

Who knows, perhaps some long, tedious, and brain-free task might need to be done, and a flurry of blog posts will appear.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone, typos corrected later

So I Wrecked A VM

2010-10-19T16:37:00.003+01:00

At home, I use VirtualBox as my preferred VM solution. It's been taken over by Oracle, so I'm hoping that they keep it on. It's one of very few solutions that's OS X native, and performs quite well. I keep a couple of Linux VMs handy, because there's a few things that are easier to do on a Linux VM than natively. For instance, Imagemagick is a pain to install on OS X, but is a one-hit install on Linux.

This has worked fine for a while. OK, I've had some problems, but nothing too serious. There's a few tricks: always install the 'build-essential' package, and make sure that you keep the VBox Additions matched to the VirtualBox build you're running.

But a couple of weeks ago, disaster struck - VirtualBox barfed violently on my VDI file. It's dead. There's comprehensive discussions at the forum, but none of them cover the problem I'm having. Bye-bye carefully-crafted environment and quite a lot of data and scripts to process the data.

Now, I know, "restore from backup". There's only one slight difficulty: Time Machine does not get on with VM disk files. Not at all. Essentially, it sees one mammoth file, which changes all the time, and so it dutifully keeps copying the whole file, until it burns through all of the space on the backup volume. So that's out of the question. So, what to do? Turns out there's a command to do this:

VBoxManage clonehd ...

This does not work if your file is damaged. Panic!

But wait... enter, stage left, PhotoRec, clutching glad tidings of happiness and joy to its chest. It's meant for recovering wrecked SD cards, but it works on any file... including a damaged VirtualBox disk image file.

I've run it on a test VM so far, and what I've got back is horrible, but I've got data back. It's found 108038 files in the test VDI file, and it's sorting them into folders. There's probably more to do, but it's not so bad.

For the future, I'm going to write startup/shutdown scripts that damn well back up the disk image files, so this shouldn't happen again. I hope.

Mauve-ember?

2010-10-17T14:29:00.001+01:00

I told Red Demigod that I'd be doing Movember this year. He asked, with a giggle, if that meant I'd be turning things purple. I had to admit that I wouldn't, but not for want of trying. No, I'll be growing a moustache. Clearly, covering up a bit of my face is a good idea (roll on PaperBagOnHeadecember), and this is a good cause. Please check out our team page, and feel free to sponsor me or the team!

- Contributed using BlogPress from my iPad

Is This Where I Want To Spend My Time?

2010-10-15T18:02:00.001+01:00

I'm driving again. The odd thing about my life is that I spend a lot of time driving, but only sometimes. Tonight, tomorrow, and Sunday I will be travelling. Nothing makes me think about geography quite like driving through a lot of it. And that makes me me think about the places where I spend my time. My laptop is one of those places, as is my phone. Now, the odd detail about the place I call laptop is that I really can't change it much. Sure, I can hang different wallpaper, and choose the stuff I put in it. These are the things at turn it from laptop to my laptop.

So what does? What makes your laptop yours? Leave me a comment, I'm still thinking about this, and I'd appreciate your input.

- Contributed using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Springfield Ln,,United Kingdom

Windows Phone 7

2010-10-15T17:52:00.001+01:00

OK, I know I said I wouldn't talk about phones any more, but this is one that I couldn't resist. I've seen a lot of screenshots of various WP7 devices, showing the "fresh" interface. All of them have one interesting thing in common-the UI elements don't fit on the screen!. This makes the whole thing look absolutely like a rushed 1.0 release.

This is just such a fundamental foul-up that I had to discuss it. I think the idea is that people will scroll, and are encouraged to scroll, because the UI doesn't fit on the screen. That's not what I get from it - to me, it looks unfinished. I remember the iPhone before folders. Heck with it, I have an iPad, which is still stuck firmly on iOS 3.2. I have eight pages of apps, and that makes for a metric butt load of scrolling. On my phone, I have two screens. One is for the built-in stuff, and the other is for all of my other apps, in folders. Scrolling on a small screen is a royal pain, and so a UI that not only needs it, but makes you do it, is surely a failure.

There had better be something utterly awesome about WP7, otherwise it'll be a horrid and unusable mess. Phones are an intensely personal thing, the device you always have with you, and people seem to care about them. Well, the kind of people that like phones do, the ones that spend money on them, anyway. Could this be another of Microsoft's "three tries before it's right" situations?

(Before you say "it's version 7, dummy, not 1.0!", could I remind you that Windows NT started at version 3.1, Exchange Server started at version 4.0, and what the heck kind of version number is "Vista" anyway?

- Contributed using BlogPress from my iPad

Was Reminded Today...

2010-10-12T17:16:00.001+01:00

I was sorting a projector today, and I was reminded of someone I used to work with. Some people know that I used to travel for work. One of my duties was doing presentations on technology to customers. Oddly, this is one of the things I miss most in my current job. Anyway, one of the jobs was to set up the room we'd be presenting in, including the projector. Now, this was four or five years ago, before proper portable projectors.

One day, we were setting up when I saw the junior Marketing guy fiddling with the projector. I told him to stop, and he naturally asked why. "Because," I explained, "if the projector is done when Alistair [King] gets here, he'll have nothing to do, and he'll start fixing things that don't need fixing, and then where will we be?"

A throat cleared behind me. "Is that what you lot have being doing?" Alistair said. I had to admit that it was. He turned on his heel, fetched a coffee, and... fixed the projector.

Much later, at the overnight stop for the next gig, two drinks in, he complimented me on my manager managing skills. We didn't speak of it again.

I found out through another acquaintance that he'd died a little while ago. This, then, is my tribute to a great man, who knew how to lead and how to inspire. I like to think that I have learned what he had to teach. People only die when people stop saying their name. It isn't his time yet.

- Contributed using BlogPress from my iPad

What Are You Playing At?

2010-09-18T15:15:00.004+01:00

I know that some people like to post their Spotify stats each week. I don't really use Spotify, although I have an account. I use iTunes and my collection of iPods to look after the music I listen to. That has the handy feature that it collects statistics for me. And today, while waiting for some video to process, I thought I'd have a look at those stats. So here we go. All numbers accurate as of when I did the extract, but I might just be listening to the music now, so the numbers may be off by one. I've selected out all the tracks I've played 42 times or more, for obvious reasons.

My most played song, with 73 plays, turns out to be what I thought it'd be: "Pillar Box Red", by The The. I discovered The The by watching the movie of Infected late one night on a scratchy old black and white TV, somewhere around 1988. The movie is basically a concept fitted to the album tracks. According to Wikipedia, Infected is number 99 in the Q Magazine list of 100 Greatest British Albums Ever. If I'd been asked what my favourite song was, I'd have replied with this song. (A small note - earlier iTunes releases used to know about band names beginning with "The" and treated them specially. A band called "The The" confused this feature utterly, and I often found myself listening to a popular beat combo known as "The, The".)

I've stayed a big fan of The The over the years. My copy of "Pillar Box Red" comes from my 45 RPM CD, which is a best-of (Amazon, Spotify), but I have several other albums by them.

Next up, with 56 plays, "I Don't Love You", by My Chemical Romance. This is from one of my favourite albums, The Black Parade. I'm slightly surprised this is so high, even though I know I love it. I can't remember where I first heard their music, but I remember borrowing the CDs from a friend at work, playing them to death, then going out and getting some more iTunes credit to buy the downloads. I love mood
music, and this definitely counts as mood music for me.

Joint third place, with 50 plays, three tracks that probably represent how weird my music tastes are. We have, in alphabetical order: "'39", by Queen; "In The Shadows", by The Rasmus, and "Why Are You Being So Reasonable Now?", by The Wedding Present. I've loved Queen for a long time-I strongly suspect that anyone who says they don't love Queen's music is either under 16 or secretly dead. I'm surprised that '39 is so high up, however - I'd never have put it in my top five without the stats. "In The Shadows" I seem to remember my brother playing for me. He's permanently irritated by the fact that I like the music they play in Gran Turismo, one of his favourite games. I don't know if that's where he first heard this track, but I wouldn't be surprised. As for "Why Are You Being So Reasonable Now?", this comes from a John Peel Sessions CD I bought at random a fair while ago, after hearing them on the radio.

In sixth and seventh place, two more My Chemical Romance tracks. Worryingly, this makes them look like one of my favourite bands, as they're the only band with more than one track in my personal top 12. The tracks are "Dead!" (48 plays) and "Teenagers" (46 plays), so more mood music there then. Although I'm not quite sure what kind of mood you'd have to be in for that to be mood music.

Eighth place goes to Andrew WK, and his subtle ode to the pleasures of the flesh, "Party Hard". I seem to recall instantly falling in love with this track after seeing it on TV somewhere. I think I must have left some random cable music channel on, then pricked up my ears when this song came on. I've apparently played that 44 times, which is more than I'd have thought.

Ninth place, and a total surprise - Ross Copperman's "As I Choke". This, I remember distinctly, was an iTunes Single of the Week. I downloaded it, not expecting much, and was amazed. I even played it for @PinkGoddess, who quite liked it, unusally for my music. That must have been one of the 43 plays it's had.

Joint tenth is Bowling for Soup's "High School Never Ends", and the old indie classic, "This Corrosion" by the Sisters of Mercy. I heard a couple of Bowling for Soup's tracks, and kind of went from there. I bought a bunch of songs, but this is my favourite. As for the Sisters - well, I was a student once, and the Sisters of Mercy was everywhere. I'd have made a terrible Goth, as goths are supposed to be thin, pale, and interesting, and I was none of those things as a tubby and scruffy 19-year old geek. But, dammit, I could listen to the Sisters of Mercy, and listen I did! Ah, those days. Now, of course, I'm a much older geek, and I've played these tracks 42 times each.

I'm half-surprised by what's made it in to my top 12 and what hasn't. I'd have expected more Queen, but the next few Queen tracks are "Somebody To Love" and "Fat Bottomed Girls", both around 19 plays. The The's "December Sunlight", another track I'd have called a rock solid fave is down the list at 38 plays. Del Amitri's "Nothing Ever Happens", a song that Pink Goddess introduced me to, is up at 23 plays, which isn't bad for a song I haven't had that long. The Wild Orchids "Traffic of Tears", which was an anthem when I was travelling is all the way down at 24 plays, which seems low, but who am I to argue with the stats? I'd link to that, but it seems utterly unknown on-line.

Comments? Love or hate the music? Want to post your own comparison? Go for it in the comments.

Just Like Raymond Chen

2010-09-08T21:28:00.001+01:00

There's not much I can do like Raymond Chen. But I can steal one of his ideas, and steal a comment to use as a tag line.

Mine comes from the lovely @alrighttit, who stole our hearts by writing about something fairly near hers - her tits.

(OK, I finally got a good comment, so I'm milking it until the udders explode!)

- Contributed using BlogPress from my iPad

Check This Out!

2010-09-06T22:25:00.003+01:00

Internet celeb, amazing writer, and fearless blogger Alright Tit is having her book The C Word turned into a BBC programme. Oh, the excitement. Read the book if you haven't, then join me on the edge of the sofa waiting. More news here.

That reminds me, I keep meaning to write up some book reviews...

BlogPress Redux

2010-09-05T20:19:00.001+01:00

I really wanted to like BlogPress. Trust me, I did.
I had high hopes when I installed it and it basically worked.

But it was all... featureless. It could edit text. And that was about it. I like to blog, so I wanted a decent tool to blog with, and BlogPress 1 wasn't it.

Imagine my apathy when BlogPress version 2 arrived. Restraining my enthusiasm wasn't hard at all. I may even have turned from my beloved iPad to my beloved Pink Goddess and asked, rhetorically, when the people behind BlogPress were going to make a decent, usable, app.

Turns out, they had. It supports decent HTML fiddling, including links, formatting, and pictures. I now like it a lot. My faith in this kind of stuff is quite restored.

(Link to the app as soon as I can-I haven't found a way to get an App Store link to paste into here yet. Sorry.)

- Contributed using BlogPress from my iPad

Once Upon a Time...

2010-09-05T20:07:00.001+01:00

Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess called Goldibytes (for reasons that may become clear later). She wanted to do her email and Facebook from the sofa, so she decided she needed a laptop. So, she asked her Prince Charming to get her a laptop.

Prince Charming ventured forth, and soon returned, bearing a Dell Inspiron 5150, which he'd carefully bodged back together, and running a carefully-optimized copy of Linux. Goldibytes turned up her exquisite nose at it, and stamped a cute foot. "This laptop is too big!" she pouted. "I want a smaller one."

So, Prince Charming ventured forth again. After a certain amount of the usual pissing about that you get when shopping in the region where he lived, he proudly gave up and took Goldibytes shopping. She came home clutching a new Asus EEEPC. Goldibytes unwrapped it, then frowned her delectably kissable lips. "My email doesn't work on here. And I want some music on here. And this operating system is a bit shit." Prince Charming fixed all of those and handed it back. "Ths fkig kybrd is uslss," yelled Goldibytes, "and this laptop is too small!" She underlined her remarks by taking her laptop in one set of deliciously cute fingers, and flinging it across the room. She even managed to style out the fact that it only went two feet because it was still plugged in.

Then, she swiped Prince Charming's beloved PowerBook, by the simple expedient of demanding that Prince Charming unpack it and set it up next to her side of the sofa, and pouting until it was done.

Prince Charming is currently hoping that Goldibytes says something along the lines of "This laptop is just right!" (Although he would really rather like his PowerBook back.)

- Contributed using BlogPress from my iPad

I've Just Realised Something

2010-08-28T08:18:00.004+01:00

It's 8:20 AM on Saturday, and I've been working for all but 4 hours of the last 24. The coffee isn't working, and I'm here for another 11 hours at least. Ouch.

So, the perfect time to make another ill-judged and inflammatory post about Android vs. iPhone. This time, I'm going to mention only one thing: screenshots. Now, I know you know that the way to do a screenshot on the iPhone is to press and release the home and lock buttons together, then go look for the resulting image in your camera roll. Anytime, anywhere.

I'm sure that you also know that the process for the Google Nexus-One, running Android, is just a teensy bit more complicated. (A brief digression - every time someone mentions the gPhone, I go all Bladerunner.) Do check the link, I must warn you that there's 8 pages of instructions there, and that the phone has to be connected to your computer to do this.

I'm sure that there are a lot of people who are dead chuffed with this. But honestly, I know it's a bit of a minority feature, but it's still useful. I personally find it interesting that the problems I see with Linux are showing up in Android.

I'm one of the many people lamenting the performance of iOS4 on an iPhone 3G, which is why I'm looking at Android. But I'm also pretty sure that I'd rather have polished, working features, than spend time trying to make this stuff work.

Preferred Reading Experience

2010-08-17T18:24:00.001+01:00

As I tweeted earlier, I'm sat in my home office (which is basically a posh name for our back bedroom). In this room are the following devices:

My lovely MacBook Pro, courtesy of my lovely employers;
My 20" iMac (thanks, Mom);
Pink Goddess' 17" iMac G5;
My PowerBook G4;
My iPad;
My iPhone;

I've just been reading several PDFs, which are work documents (so no links, sorry). I originally turned them into PDFs and synched them to my iPad so that I'd have something I could read while I was waiting for Pink Goddess while out of the office, but that turned out to be unnecessary - I had too much email to do instead. So there they sat on my iPad.
Finally, I got my emails done, and... turned to my iPad to read. Somehow, reading on the iPad screen seems easier. Perhaps it's the way that you can turn it anyhow, or maybe it's the fact that it's not anchored to a desk because of the size. Anyway, it's my preferred reading environment.

JapFest2

2010-08-16T19:29:00.003+01:00

And so to Rockingham, for JapFest 2. Somehow, I agreed to go, so that my nephew could check out some of the Japanese cars he knows from Gran Turismo 5. We had a whale of a time, including a certain Pink Goddess, who's not normally known for appreciating cars.

Highlights of the day including a fantastic Mazda RX-4:

Drift Taxis (a ride for a tenner) I did have a go:

And some actual, honest, proper drift racing:

I could bang on about it for a while (and have been known to), but let's just say that it was a great day out. Rockingham is always lots of fun to visit, and even with a popular event it's easy to drive in and out of. There's lots to see and do, as long as you're into cars and motorsport. The very best thing about it, though, is the unique visibility of the track. Because the track is quite tight, and the stands are excellent, you can genuinely see the whole track from your seat. This means that you never miss any action, as you can watch a car all the way around a lap. If there's a battle going on that you want to watch, you can see it all.

If you're a fan of motorsport, and you haven't been to Rockingham, then you're missing out. End of.

Sorry, Adobe

2010-07-31T19:25:00.003+01:00

The other day, my iPad presented me with this informative screen:

Basically, it's Adobe moaning that Flash isn't allowed on the iPad. I had many reactions to this, but one of the main ones was "Diddums". And I'm a paying Adobe customer (I cropped that in a legit paid-for copy of Photoshop Elements, in case anyone from Adobe's watching).

And then today, I found myself writing about this issue again. I wrote as follows

I think you're wrong here (although I can see that typing this on my MBP somewhat reveals my position). Apple cares most about a fantastic user experience. I think their message is the way it is because of a couple of important facts. I shall try to explain below:

Apple has been bitten before with handing control of their platforms over to third parties before. Much of their animosity towards 'write once, run anywhere' is down to the deadening effect of Flash. If you support Flash, you had de facto control of your platform over to Adobe, who have their own agenda (and, judging by the shabbiness of their efforts to support Apple platforms, their interests do not coincide with Apple's). Apple wants to build the best platform it can, and to innovate as fast as possible on the platforms they make. To do this, they insist that you write to their platform, so that you can use the full API, and build the best applications that you can. This gives the very best user experience on Apple platforms.

However, if you don't want to write on the iPhone/iPad platform, for whatever reason, then you can also write HTML5 applications targeting WebKit, or just targeting browsers in general. Again, Apple is pushing hard on this one, so that these applications run as well as possible on Apple platforms, including iPhone/iPad, but also OS X, and also other people's platforms.

There is no conflict, there are simply two opportunities, and you can choose which ones you follow up. If you want to create the best possible iPhone/iPad experience, then you go down the route of native apps and the AppStore. If you want write once/run anywhere, and you are OK with the restrictions on the user experience that will create, then you can go down that route too.

I don't see Apple retreating from HTML5/WebKit/etc, I see them working hard to bring the best of it to their devices, but continuing to point out that a native app will always be able to do things that a web app can't, but that it's your choice which one you follow.

I would much rather have this approach than the traditional Microsoft approach of "It's Windows, or at the very least, IE" for everything.

I agree with this, of course, since I wrote it. At the time, I hadn't joined the dots about Flash. Flash has a bunch of problems, and seems worse on OS X than on Windows. For instance, I always know when Pink Goddess is playing Treasure Island, because the fans on her iMac start when the Flash player loads, and stop again when she shuts it down.

Flash has become ubiquitous on the web, but that's despite its disadvantages. I browse with Flash blocked all the time now, and I wouldn't want it on my iPad. I'd like to see the web move to open standards. I'm old enough to remember the days when some web development tools would generate content that was only viewable in the browser from the same company. I don't want to go back there.

Blogpress

2010-07-21T21:58:00.000+01:00

On Ian Betteridge's recommendation, I bought Blogpress for iPad. It's really okay. Only problem is that I haven't worked out how to insert links. Otherwise, just for bashing text in and putting it out there, it's all good. Perhaps for the next version, eh lads?

- Contributed using BlogPress from my iPad

Thud. Ouch.

2010-07-18T22:54:00.001+01:00

I don't know if you've seen the red Ferrari limo that's now available for hire somewhere or other in the UK. If not, there's a web page here: http://www.limobroker.co.uk/ferrari-limo.htm.

Well, we spotted it tonight in Great Bridge. Parked. Someone managed to hit it and smash the offside door. That's going to be one expensive insurance claim.

- Contributed using BlogPress from my iPad

ScribeFire

2010-07-15T11:35:00.001+01:00

I've been looking for a decent blogging client for a while. I don't have any kind of objection to paying for software, although I'd plead poverty and look for a free solution wherever possible. One of the things that I'd used when I used Windows was a program called BlogDesk. It's a basic blogging client for Windows, which works well. Sadly, it's also Windows-only. There are a number of highly-recommended Mac solutions, but none that were free.

And then I stumbled across something that recommended ScribeFire. It's a plug in for Firefox and Safari. Thus far, in my limited testing, it works well. I'm using it now, so if you can see this, it works. So far, I've only put it on my work laptop, but I'll probably install it on my home machine when I get a chance.

I just need to find a solution for the iPad now. Any suggestions?

Culture

2010-07-13T18:40:00.002+01:00

No, not the books by Iain M. Banks.

Two weeks off work has given me a bit of perspective on work. Being away from the day to day gives you a chance to think long term about where you are and where you're heading. Apparently. I spent my holiday not thinking about work at all, and just wandering through the days so chilled that you could have kept a side of beef in me for the two weeks.

Yesterday, back to my usual 6 AM start, to be in work for 7. And it wasn't bad. I was actually quite pleased to be back. I even smiled whe. I found a certain person had left a copy of a book I recommended. I'll let you guess who would buy a book like that, based on my recommendation.

So, yeah, parts of me probably would like to be being chauffeured to my private jet, passport in hand, I actually like what I do. That's not to say there aren't frustrations, but those are that I would like to do more, go faster, and fly higher!

So, back to reading the book noted above, and "Now Find Your Strengths", and see what I learn about myself and others. Onward, and as the phrase has it, and upward!

More Spam Comments

2010-07-13T18:30:00.002+01:00

I've just deleted three more spam comments. Goodness me, but this is annoying. I suppose I should be pleased that my blog's got big enough to actually start attracting spam, but it's not great. I didn't want to turn comment moderation on, but I had to. It's disappointing because I used to get excited when I got email about new comments. In fact, I had an alert set up. That got binned a while ago.

Now it's more of a nuisance. I doubt it will stop me blogging, but it's making blogging more of a time sink than I wanted it to be. It actually makes me more inclined to blog on the internal blogs at work, as they don't go to a public server, and therefore don't get spam comments. Or any comments at all, come to think of it.

Some mistake, surely?

2010-07-12T18:30:00.000+01:00

I've just seen this in a blog I frequent:

But I wonder. Did they in fact mean "No, I don't want to miss a chance to live and work in the USA"? Because, you know, I like living in the UK, with our NHS, our BBC, and our thousands of years of history. But maybe others might disagree, and that ad might be able to help them. Just saying.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

A note made with Penultimate

2010-06-26T11:09:00.001+01:00

iPad as "Everywhere Else" computer

2010-06-26T09:05:00.001+01:00

As I said earlier (sorry for lack of link, anyone recommend better blogging software for iPad?), I have swapped out my laptop for my iPad.

Interestingly, the two aren't equivalent, because the iPad is a much more convenient device to have. It's what I use when I'm not at another computer.

When I'm at work, I use my amazing new MacBook Pro, either at my desk, or elsewhere in the building. Or, of course, at my desk at home. At home, I use my lovely iMac. Everywhere else - well, that's where the iPad comes in. If I go away for a night or two, the iPad is all the computer I need. Even if I'm not away, the way that I can pull out the iPad, turn it on and go, means that I use it a lot. I'm blogging from my kitchen table right now.

This wouldn't be so convenient with a full-size laptop. I'd go so far as to say that the truly killer feature of the iPad is that it's instant-on. If I had to wait should something booted, things wouldn't get done.

Should you get one? I don't know. But you should at least have a look. I hate to admit that the hype was right, but you know what - the more I use the iPad, the more I know I don't want to be without it.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Handy Website

2010-06-26T08:57:00.001+01:00

I thought everyone knew about this site, but it seems not. So, if you didn't, allow me to tell you about the Traffic England web site. It's cunningly concealed at http://www.trafficengland.com/ (sorry for lack of link, I need a better mobile blog client). You can choose a motorway, search for traffic problems, see the matrix signs and even look through the cameras. All this, and it works on the iPhone and iPad. Five stars!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Shut down my laptop

2010-06-23T21:00:00.000+01:00

I've shut down my laptop. I've decided that I'm going to go for it with the iPad. So, I'm going to use my iPhone, my iPad, and my iMac.

I'm really impressed with the iPad so far. The battery life is excellent, the software is good, and overall the experience is excellent. I've read a book on it, I've written a few blog posts, listened to music, and generally used it a lot. So far, I'm still not _quite_ seeing revolutionary and magical, but I am seeing that this is the start of something different.

Yes, there are some limitations, but I remember iPhone firmware 1.x. It didn't do much , but it definitely did it beautifully. So let's see what iOS4 brings.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

VCF 2010 Photos

2010-06-21T21:33:00.002+01:00

The (sadly very few) photos I took at the Vintage Computer Fair are here.

Vintage Computer Fair 2010

Vintage Computer Exhibition

2010-06-21T18:22:00.000+01:00

Computing, as a field, hasn't existed long. As such, the idea of describing something computer-related as "vintage" seems charmingly over-keen. After all, vintage cars are officially pre-1903. Of course, computing moves so fast that anything you can buy now is out-dated (except the iPad, of course), but even so, I was Red's age when this stuff was new!

But off I went, dragging a somewhat protesting Red along with me, to Bletchley Park for the National Museum of Computing's first Vintage Computer Fair. It was awesome! There was every computer I had ever heard of, and a bunch of them that I hadn't. There were so many amazing hacks, to keep these ancient machines relevant. I used a ZX Spectrum+ 128 to post a tweet, and played with any number of old machines. I even compared my iPad to an old Z88. What a difference 22 years makes: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2416489/DSCF0009.JPG.

I'll post the rest of the photos when I get time, but it was an amazing day. I even had to drag Red bodily away from Manic Miner and a Macintosh SE.

The most astonishing moment was seeing a 2010 version of the Amiga operating system. OK, I'm an operating systems geek, but AmigaOS had a lot going for it twenty years ago. Now, it still looks impressive, running on modern PowerPC hardware. It's surprisingly modern-looking, and comes with a full set of modern tools, except for vi.

(Oh, and I was filmed by an independent programme maker for a documentary on BBC Click, helped a few people write ZX BASIC programs, stared at a Cray Y-MP, tried to remember the bits of VMS I once knew, and generally geeked out!)

Hopefully there's another one next year!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Exit Wound

2010-06-21T17:57:00.000+01:00

Some people know that my custody arrangements have been changed again. If you're one of the majority who didn't, please don't feel left out-I haven't wanted to talk about it, and I still don't. This will probably be the only time that I mention it.

I used to think that the custody battles was just the exit wound. The real damage was elsewhere, and this was just another thing. I was wrong. This is the real wound. This is what hurts, then and now.

I tore myself in two, made more wounds, but I did what I wanted to do, because it had to be done and only I can do it.
After meeting people I could live with, I found someone I couldn't live without. Everything changed. But now I was torn in three. Fresh tears, new wounds, the old hurt lost. And, of course, the ever-present fear of failure. How could I do this? Didn't I know I wasn't good enough for these people? Surely there was someone better than me to look after them?

And again it changes. Just as I had learned to live with the old wounds, it changes again. I'm sure it's better.
But I have to get used to a new situation, torn between the two people I can't live without. It's like my earring. Every time I have it changed, it's a new hurt for a while. Eventually I get used to it.

For those of you who know me in real life, I'm so sorry if I seem distant and unbothered. I will be fine soon, I promise. In he mean time, please bear with me.
And, just like rolling over in my sleep and landing on my earring, sometimes I make a mistake. That hurts too, a sharp and twisting blade. When it does, I'm glad I still have to do some driving. When I drive, it takes me back to the days I drove for a living. The old grey ribbon unrolling under me lulls me back to the place and the time where I didn't have to think, didn't have to feel, just had to haul my body and belongings from one place to another. The sound of those times is The Wild Orchids' "Traffic of Tears". I couldn't find a YouTube link, but you could search on your favourite music supplier.

If only...

2010-06-15T22:01:00.002+01:00

We have an appointment for sofa cleaning, my beer fridge is full, and I have a new Internet appliance. If only there was something going on, maybe some kind of sporting event, which would leave me sitting on the sofa, desperate for information, for the next three weeks or so.

So it's Whirled Cop 2010, or some such. I plan to celebrate this Festival of Football (other cliches are available) the same way that I always do, with my favourite blog on the subject, EatSleepDrinkToon. It's taught me a lot. For instance, I honestly thought that "Manure" was something that you put on roses, until I found ESDT.

I recommend it - in the stark staring bonkers world of football, EatSleepDrinkToon is a small island of insanity.

iPad first impressions

2010-06-13T20:22:00.001+01:00

I have an iPad. Hence I can now review it. The most amazing thing about it is that Red Demigod tells me that the kids at his school are arguing about whether iPads are a waste or not. I'm happy to say that it most definitely isn't a waste. It's utterly amazing.

The screen is bright, clear, and amazing. It looks like a proper book. The overall appearance is familiar from the iPhone, but tuned for the much bigger screen. The setup was a breeze, apart from it complaining about not having a SIM card in. Hopefully, that'll show up soon-I ordered it last night from O2.

Otherwise - well, calling it magical and revolutionary makes it sound like the lovechild of Che Guevara and Harry Potter. But I think it will be a game changer, and it will be important, even if only to see what uses people find for it.

As for me-well, my beloved PowerBook is rather long in the tooth now. I plan to see if the iPad will mean that I don't need to buy a new laptop. Could it work? Feel free to leave me a comment, but so far it's going well-I wrote this blog post on it, using the on-screen keyboard.

Contributed from my iPad!

Google Analytics serves up some numbers

2010-05-26T21:06:00.004+01:00

OK, so I failed to resist temptation, and I've installed Google Analytics on my blog. Charmingly, it's only free up to a certain number of hits... not that I'll get anywhere near there. So I thought I'd look at the data. I've had 33 hits so far, each and every one from someone quite lovely.

The stats make some interesting reading. About 60% of my hits are from people using Windows, 27% are on Macs, and 6% Linux. Amazingly, 9% are from iPhones, so I should look at the site on an iPhone and make sure that it's usable on an iPhone.

More interesting is the browser breakdown. OK, so this isn't a typical web site, what with all of you lovely readers being so much more amazing and wonderful than everyone else, but even so I was amazed to see these numbers. Top browser with 33% is Firefox. Next up, with 30%, is Safari (well one of those is something called "Mozilla Compatibility Agent" for iPhone). Third place is IE, with just under a quarter of the hits. And finally, Chrome. Apparently, no-one uses Opera.

So there you have it. I'd have expected more Linux users, and I wasn't expecting hits from iPhones, but I suppose that's why the stats are useful. Anyway, please keep visiting, and please tell your friends!

Spam

2010-05-26T20:29:00.002+01:00

I suppose I should be pleased that my blog is big enough and popular enough that I get spam. Somehow, it doesn't really make me that happy. Get off my lawn!

Gratuitous Cuteness

2010-05-25T21:22:00.002+01:00

Sand Kittens. Aww.

Android wins again. Apparently.

2010-05-20T22:23:00.003+01:00

So, Android update is here, so you can update your 2.0 to 2.1. Now, I'm not going to be unfair here, as I've been accused of bias before.

So, let's do an upgrade comparison:

iPhone upgrade:

Plug in phone and let it sync;
Download update and let it install;
Wait for phone to reboot;

When the phone restarts, it's got the new firmware, but all of your data is still there. Wallpaper, texts, wi-fi networks, it's all there. Some of my data has been through several revisions, and it's still all there.

In fact, I'd assumed that this is how smartphone upgrades work. After all, I don't have to reinstall all my applications after updating my operating system, so why should I have to lose everything when I update my phone?

Ah. Apparently when you use Android, the update wipes all your data. You can forward your messages to yourself via email, and download all of your apps from the Market again, if you'd like to keep them. They don't even mention what happens to application settings, wi-fi favourites, and so on.

Remind me how this is supposed to be better than iPhone again.

Soulver

2010-05-19T19:42:00.003+01:00

Daring Fireball mentioned Soulver earlier today. It's a fascinating app, kind of a numerate Notepad. I loved the look of it right away. But, of course, like a lot of beautifully-designed software, it's not free. So, the question becomes, would I buy it? Err... err... err... perhaps I might buy the iPhone or iPad versions.

The main reason why is because it's simply easier to buy an app for the iPhone. If I want to buy a $25 piece of software, it's actually a pain. I can try buying it on my credit card, then deal with my credit card being blocked again because it's been used in America, then wonder how much it'll cost, and so on.

Or I can buy the iPhone version from the App Store. I know how much it'll cost, and how I'll pay. No credit card issues, instant download, and it'll go on all the devices I have. Excellent.

One day, all software purchasing will work this way.

(P.S.: If anyone from Soulver is reading this, I'm not saying that I wouldn't buy your app, but I am saying that I'll likely buy the iPhone one to start with.)

Living in the Future

2010-05-18T18:37:00.004+01:00

Last night, at the Fort, I found myself bored and waiting for some photos to print at the photo print machine. So, I pulled out my trusty iPhone (other smartphones might be slightly less available than before) and began reading "When Sysadmins Ruled The World" by Cory Doctrow. It's good - check it out.

At this point, I realised that I was finished waiting for the future. We're living in it now. I'm quite excited about what the present holds, never mind the future. Of course, I work at Talis, where we are building the future. I'm lucky.

Bring it on, I say.

(Want to join in and build a piece of everyone's future? Apply within.)

General Election 2010

2010-05-12T21:41:00.006+01:00

As you might know, I set out to talk to the three main party candidates for my area, to see who I wanted to vote for. I wanted to prove that ordinary people like me could get involved in politics, could work out who to vote for, educate ourselves, and make a difference.

Here's a newsflash, although more of a shock for me than anyone else: I was wrong.

It turns out that you can't do that. These were the results:

Labour: bounce message from the Exchange server at the Houses of Parliament;
LibDem: No reply to my email;
Conservative: He showed, he talked, he went away. He then asked to see and change what I wrote before I was allowed to post it. That's why I never posted it.

Looking back on it, I was wrong and I was stupid. I can't get involved in politics because I can't afford to buy an MP. I live in a Labour safe seat, so it's hardly worth voting. My MP doesn't care and knows he doesn't need to care.

I won't be bothering again. This subject is closed.

Conservatives and #DeBill

2010-05-12T21:28:00.002+01:00

I have some documents that I was sent during my abortive attempt to get political. They're to do with the Conservative Party's position on the Digital Economy bill. They make for interesting reading. There are several slightly worrisome parts, but the key piece is here:

The measures in the Bill designed to tackle illegal peer to peer file sharing set up a proportionate regime that would, only following public consultation, repeated warnings and due process, lead to people being disconnected temporarily. It will not, as many have suggested, lead to people being disconnected without an appeal. Even if people are disconnected they will be able to sign up to another ISP immediately without penalty.

So that's all OK then. When I get disconnected, I can sign up with another ISP. Except that I have a choice of one where I live. So it's game over for me. Well, not me, as our connection is in Pink Goddess's name.

I want to make sure that Britain has the most favourable intellectual property framework in the world for innovators, digital content creators, and high tech[sic] businesses.

So,who's missing from that list? You and me. People who use the Internet, but aren't rich enough to buy an MP. So, anything we do that might possibly threaten the interest of a company, means we lose.

I can't say enough that we wanted change, but we didn't get it.

Ask Me Anything

2010-05-03T17:33:00.002+01:00

Thanks to FormSpring, you can now ask me anything:

http://www.formspring.me/mauvedeity

LibDem Candidate

2010-04-15T21:42:00.001+01:00

I've also written to the LibDem candidate. Let's see what happens this time.

Labour Candidate

2010-04-15T21:16:00.002+01:00

I emailed Liam Byrne. I know he's currently an MP, but I thought I'd ask for a face to face meeting. So I wrote an email and sent it off.

And I very quickly got a reply. Shame it was a bounce, indicated that his email can't be forwarded from Parliament's Exchange Server on to his actual mailbox. That's a bit dumb. So I guess I'll be printing that letter and posting it out.

So far, one to the Conservatives, minus one to Labour, and zero for the Lib Dems.

Conservative Candidate

2010-04-14T19:23:00.005+01:00

As I said in a previous post, I plan to get more involved in this election. To that end, I wrote to my local Conservative candidate, Shailesh Parekh. The email is here, in my shared folder.

I'll be publishing his response (if any). I want to do this for all my local candidates here in Birmingham Hodge Hill, so please watch this space. If you have any comments, or a question you'd like me to ask, please get in touch.

General Election 2010

2010-04-14T19:17:00.002+01:00

You might have heard there's an election going on. With that in mind, I've been considering who to vote for. I honestly couldn't make up my mind. Politically, I'm basically a bit of a lefty. However, I can't bring myself to vote for the party that keeps returning Peter Mandelson to power without checking that that really is the lesser of several evils. So I decided that I'd investigate what's what.

I'll blog here in the 'election2010' category what happens. Feel free to comment.

Cross-platform usually means...

2010-04-12T16:09:00.003+01:00

Cross-platform usually means two things:

Only the lowest common denominator supported;
Built for one platform, badly ported to the others;

With this in mind, here's a small clip of an installer:

One guess as to why I killed the installer here and deleted the source files. (Hint: I'm installing on a Mac.)

It's a shame - learning a pay-for and proprietary language that's not properly supported on my favourite platforms seemed like such a good idea. Time to stick to Python.

Useless of Blog

Homeopathic Customer Service

InsomniMac

Happy New Year

Hard Bright Lines

This just in from the 'Rod For Your Own Back' department

Giving The Defaults A Damn Good Leaving Alone

SuperUser

External Memory

IPod Divination

Since *When*?

Accidental Neglect

Extraverts are from Mars, Introverts are from Venus

What are you listening to right now?

Proud Dad Moment

Wanted to call myself "sqrt(-1)" but it wasn't allowed.

File Formats

Eicker Fanboi!

* Actual Size

Put To Bed With Extreme Prejudice

Territorial Restrictions

Why I Am The Luckiest Person In The World (And You Aren't)

Broken Link

I'm The Parent Of A Teenager!

In Which I Confess Disappointment, Despair, But Not Surprise

If It's OK With You, That Is

Kindle

FOAF-RDF

90 Day Cafe

Ontologies

There's something missing here

A Welcome Return

Err...

"Phone Hacking"

Database Schema

Linked Data 101

Mothers Day 2011

Rastamouse (Part 2)

Good Advice

That Well-Known Racist, Rastamouse!

Book Review: "Zilombo"

Technical Debt

A Sorry Tail of Woe

Darn it, I hate agreeing with everyone

It's all about...

BYOC Considered Harmful

"The Curious Incident of The Mouse in the Night-Time"

Why the App Store is going to work

An Offer

Advice

Happy Christmas

The Hampster Wheel of Being Needed

Bye, Firefox!

"Writing for the Web" Workshop

My 3

It's Cold!

Hoping for a Guest Post

Neglected, but not forgotten

So I Wrecked A VM

Mauve-ember?

Is This Where I Want To Spend My Time?

Windows Phone 7

Was Reminded Today...

What Are You Playing At?

Just Like Raymond Chen

Check This Out!

BlogPress Redux

Once Upon a Time...

I've Just Realised Something

Preferred Reading Experience

JapFest2

Sorry, Adobe

Blogpress

Thud. Ouch.

ScribeFire

Culture

More Spam Comments

Some mistake, surely?

A note made with Penultimate

iPad as "Everywhere Else" computer

Since When?