March 25, 2007
Wine
Those of my friends, family, and colleagues of a more, ahem, alcoholic disposition might do well to follow this link to Stormhoek thresher virus 2.0, whereupon they can receive a whopping great 40% off wines between now and the start of April.
I have my coupon downloaded and printed and in my bag, and I expect to drive past a suitable purveyor of fortified grape juice later this week. Enjoy.
March 24, 2007
March 21, 2007
Autolevelling
I spend a lot of time on Skype conference calls at the moment. Here's an obvious missing feature: automatically setting the volume level of the different callers. Right now I'm straining to hear some people, whilst getting my eardrums blown out by others. This should be handled in software, not by spending hours saying "please move your microphone closer / please move your microphone further away".March 19, 2007
Lowering the bar
The error on that web page has been bugging me for some time. This evening it reached the point where I was correcting it so often when I copied and pasted during testing that I finally snapped, and decided to fix it at the source.
So I go to edit the page, and realise I need to login. I hit the login button, and Safari pre-fills my username and password as it does for all the sites I use regularly. The username looks plausible, and the password looks long enough. But no, the password I'm entering is wrong.
After using the back button (because the menu links don't work after an error for some reason) I find the "email me a password" link, and use it. The new password arrives, I enter it, I'm logged in. I navigate back to the page with the error, and hit edit. Only to be warned that my browser (Safari) is not compatible with the CMS. So now I have to switch browser, login again, navigate back to the page and do the edit thing.
After all this hassle, it's late and it's time to go to get some sleep. The irony is I only needed to change one word. I guess I'll get round to it in a few more weeks.
The CMS was supposed to lower the barriers. I guess the moral of the story is sometimes something that at first glance should be an enabler can often have the opposite effect. Less sometimes really is more.
ps. Mentioning no names deliberately. As it happens, I can think of at least three CMSes that have bitten me with some of these problems in the last month, so I don't want to point the finger unfairly at any one of them just because I'm irritated tonight.
March 18, 2007
Pipes
Maybe I'm missing something ... but in cool technologies like Yahoo! Pipes and Quartz Composer there seems to be an awful lot of emphasis on RSS and Atom, but precious little on XML with transformations.
This seems like a bit of a problem to me, since for example Flickr's API response formats are quite heavily XML-based: REST, XML-RPC, and SOAP (with JSON and PHP the only non-XML options).
Am I missing some obvious pipes/composer plugins or super third-party service that'll do transformations for me?
Indeed, there's a thread on the Yahoo! Pipes forum on using XML as a datasource, with RSSBus as one solution. But this assumes RSS is the right format for my data ... but it's better than nothing. Or it would be, if it weren't a .Net Windows-based product. Sounds like I need to set up a Cocoon Web 2.0 API proxy server thingummy.
March 17, 2007
flickr'd
I'm playing around with all that tasty Web 2.0 stuff, and trying to come to grips with Flickr for a super top-secret project (an ill-conceived idea of writing my own Quartz screensaver, if you must know).
I just got stumped for a couple of minutes by this: the docs for the Flickr REST interface imply a mythical api.flickr.com address. Turns out that as far as I can tell the docs are wrong - you want www.flickr.com instead.
Once more, for Googlers:
http://api.flickr.com/services/rest/?method=flickr.test.echo&name=value
should be ....
http://www.flickr.com/services/rest/?method=flickr.test.echo&name=value
You can test it in Firefox, and you should see some XML back:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<rsp stat="fail">
<err code="100" msg="Invalid API Key (Key not found)" />
</rsp>
I think all online documentation should have a quick and easy form at the bottom for submitting errors and omissions. How about it, flickr?
March 16, 2007
links for 2007-03-16
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Remember the ports ... 6942-6951 ...
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It works ... life-saver!
Here, there, everywhere
TFI Friday, indeed.
At the end of last week I was in Amsterdam, where we tied up some Sourcesense stuff. I also got to grab those beers with Jeroen, as well as a few more of the great guys at Hippo. Always a pleasure! I also got to catch up with Thom, and spent some quality time gasping at the cost of Crumpler bags. They may be good, but not that good. I'd rather spend £200 evenly between a new bag and a trip somewhere to take photos than blowing it all on something so blatantly overpriced.
This week was a whirlwind. In London on Monday interviewing some interesting guys, as we begin to build up the Sourcesense team in the UK. Then in the evening, beers with Jeroen and Jeremy, freshly back from Guadeloupe (and looking at the photos, how envious am I?)
On Tuesday I raced up to Manchester ahead of the Open Source Consortium AGM, and was happily able to spend some time with Aid and his lovely wife.
Yesterday was the last of the Enterprise Thursday events held at UEA, which I've been occasionally popping along to as it's always interesting to hear other people's perspectives on business, and there's never a time to stop learning this stuff. I look forward to seeing the lecture series run again next year - this part of the UK is well-served for those already "doing it", but desperately needs some practical inspiration and encouragement for those still in the "thinking about it" stage.
Today I'm firmly entrenched in presentation software as I try to pull together various strands of conversation from the last few months and shape them into something sensible. I'm also still crunching through some ideas for my ApacheCon EU talk (book now!), and I've just confirmed a slot in April at the Auril Commercialisation and Entrepreneurship event on Free and Open Source Software, where I'll be discussing current business models using OSS. Something I'm quite familiar with.
There's a definite buzz in the air, and some really exciting stuff coming up. I think next month is going to be a lot of fun...
March 12, 2007
Politics and travel
I don't know quite what's going on, but the Conservative party are turning things upside down here in the UK. Between pushing for Open Source and pushing for more tax on flights, a casual observer might begin to think they are doing the right thing.
They did at least make me curious about exploring travel options. So here's a hypothetical comparison: I regularly have meetings in Amsterdam, so what's the incentive to "do the right thing" currently?
With Eurostar, booking 2 months ahead gives me a travel time of some 8.5 hours each way and a price of in the region of £300 (based on the Eurostar details and the addition of getting from Norwich to London). On the plus side, there's power sockets at the seats. On the down side, it's an entire day of travel with no internet access.
With Flybe, booking ahead gives me a travel time of 2 hours there and -25 minutes back (seriously; on Saturday I walked in the door of my house before I took off in Amsterdam), and a cost of £59.37 - all of which is airport taxes and charges. On the plus side, the journey time and cost are negligible. On the down side, there's security theatre.
I think right now it's a very tough business case to pick the "environmentally-friendly" option over the quick and cheap option. It would take a properly-integrated travel network (ideally no changes of train) and wifi all the way (productive working time wins out over security theatre and speed). But it's hard to believe that any government could increase the taxes more than threefold.
Maybe I should just buy a boat? I could sail to Amsterdam in the ultimate environmentally-friendly vehicle, and it will be handy given the seeming inevitability of global warming, too. Then I can travel the world long after Norwich and Amsterdam are under water ;-)
March 9, 2007
Too weird
I count myself lucky to know David, as he's a unique individual. However, sometimes knowing him can lead to some seriously bizarre encounters - like, for example, Wednesday night.
There I was stood in one of the swanky function rooms at the Century Club in London. It was the launch of a new MIT Press book and the new centre at Brunel University, where David works. I was listening to a variety of speeches whilst sipping the free wine, when suddenly the guy on stage whips up his sleeve and waves his arm around, displaying a perfectly-formed third ear.
It got weirder still. The owner of this extra ear, Stelarc, explained that the ear was fitted with a bluetooth microphone - all the better to hear us with.
Disturbing, strange, and very very bizarre.
March 7, 2007
links for 2007-03-07
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neat idea. as thom points out, it does rather assume you use one terminal and login/logout once a day, but still ...
Hotel 101
(Since today is disgruntled traveller day, I thought I'd jump on the bandwagon. Oh, and don't even get me started on the problems I had with KLM's broken website this morning, that's a 10,000 word essay right there.)
Dear Hoteliers,
Here's some handy hints to boost your bookings and increase your customer retention:
- Provide secure booking on your website, not just a simple web form to email. There's no way I'm going to trust email with credit card details.
- Avoid listing a range of prices. Pick one. If I call having seen €85-95, I'm going to wonder why I'm charged €95 and not €85.
- When I call, don't tell me I need to fax or email reservation confirmation or bank details. It's one more hassle I don't need.
Thanks,
Andrew.
Actually, the hotel in question (yes, Rho Hotel, I'm looking at you) did me a favour. They gave me all the incentive I need to not just go for the easy repeat business option, but to look around and try somewhere else. So now I'm booked into a more conveniently-located four-star hotel (rather than the Rho's three stars) for the same price. And if it's good, I doubt I'll be back in the Rho any time soon.
March 6, 2007
Committers
Good news everybody!
Two new Cocoon committer votes, which are particularly pleasing for me since I've worked alongside both Felix and Jeroen, and consider them both excellent developers as well as excellent people. Hopefully I'll get a chance to grab a beer with Jeroen later this week in Amsterdam to celebrate ;-)
March 3, 2007
Wii
I got a Wii :-)
I'm not a big gamer. I'm often happier reading or watching a film than fulfilling the geek stereotype. But I'd read about the health benefits of the Wii, and conscious of my expanding waistline and lack of exercise, I decided it was time to buy one. I thought that was a plausible excuse, anyway.
This is the first "just released" console I've bought ... I waited ages before getting a Playstation One, never did get round to getting a PS2, avoided the XBox and XBox 360, and never really considered previous Nintendo machines. The PSP was the 'newest' game machine I'd bought, and even that had been out for a long time when I got it. All of which means I'm quite excited to have something 'cutting edge' in the house.
First impressions, then. The unboxing experience was fun, but let's not kid ourselves here: it's not Apple hardware. Aside from the glossy white box and the glossy white components, the packaging shows nowhere near the attention to experience that Apple does. But then, who cares ... the box is going in the bin tomorrow, since I'm only giving up this gadget when you prise it from my cold, dead hands.
So, it's good then? Yes. It's a totally revolutionary experience. I actually gasped during the setup when I pointed the controller at the screen and could feel the pointer moving over the buttons. It's strange, but soon seems totally normal. Suddenly I'm wondering why I don't have a force-feedback mouse.
And the games. Wii Sports had me laughing out loud and jumping round the lounge like a complete idiot. Totally immersive, totally fun. And that's what it's all supposed to be - not taking things too seriously, just sheer enjoyment. Excite Truck had me cursing at first as I tried to play seriously. Then I realised you get points for crashing and trashing and generally being silly - and the laughter started again. Zelda I found to be frustrating, until I got to run around swinging a sword. Suddenly other games of that ilk that require a mouse to play seem extremely unintuitive. Of course you should swing your controller to lash out with the weapon!
Getting hold of the Wii was something of a challenge since they aren't readily available in the stores - except in gratuitously expensive bundles with several games that I'm not remotely interested in. But all hail the internet - there's a site set up especially to track Wii stock levels. As soon as I got an alert, I pounced.
It will be interesting to see if I'm still playing regularly in a month's time - which was about how long it took me to give up on other consoles. Early hysterical laughter suggests I will be. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to play tennis.
March 2, 2007
links for 2007-03-02
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This reduced my index from 71mb to 63mb, and resulted in a significant speedup.