beatnic - just wondering

On my Sunday run yesterday morning I suddenly caught myself turning everything I was doing in to Facebook status updates.

If you haven’t been on Facebook, status updates let you tell people in your group of friends or networks whatever you want in little SMS type messages which then appear on their Facebook pages next time they visit.

For example this morning I wrote “starting a new chapter” which was then translated to “Nic Price is starting a new chapter” on my friends’ Facebook pages.

It’s not just Facebook that has this feature. Twitter is one of a several other sites that let you do the same thing, but without inserting the word “is” in front of what you write. It’s a little like writing really really short blog posts.

So there I was… “finding this hill steeper than usual”… “wishing he’d been running more regularly recently”… when I suddenly caught myself at it. “Nic Price is thinking in status updates.”

A friend recently told me they hadn’t used LinkedIn since discovering Facebook, which I found interesting.

I think they are very different animals, each with their own set of services - a few of which overlap.

Not all my “connections” on LinkedIn are “friends” on Facebook and vice versa. It makes a good Venn diagram though!

[And yes yes I did once said I'd remain "LinkedOut" :)]

I can tell Wordie has the potential to become highly addictive for all the right reasons even if I haven’t quite understood the point yet…

Wordie lets you make lists of words — practical lists, words you love, words you hate, whatever. See who else has listed the same words, add citations and comments, and discuss.
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[Via Euan]

Cateye cordless readings:

11.69 miles
Cycling time 44:49
Max 25.5 mph
Avg 15.7 mph

Polar readings:

Max 168 = 91%
Avg 133 = 72%
Total elapsed time 51:53
560 kcal

Akismet has caught 7,250 spam for you since you installed it.

You can delete all of the spam from your database with a single click. This operation cannot be undone, so you may wish to check to ensure that no legitimate comments got through first. Spam is automatically deleted after 15 days, so don’t sweat it.

That’s about 900 spam comments per week! Thank you Akismet :-)

A person who blocks innovation and progress by taking a one-size-fits-all approach to life and in particular technology.

“The trick… is to make sure that each limited mechanical part of the Web, each application, is within itself composed of simple parts that will never get too powerful.” - says Tim Berners-Lee

What are Microformats?

Via Peter J. Bogaards’ Understanding by design

This from CNNMoney.Com:

A new Web revolution is picking up steam, and the next Google or Microsoft could emerge from the companies that are in the vanguard.

Via a certain high-profile blog on our intranet! :)

244 posts
105 comments
29 categories

Most frequent commenter: Mum

:-)

A search for a definition of the currently much- (some say over-) used word mashup takes you to this wikipedia disambiguation page (i.e. it has more than one meaning) which then leads to the following:

Mashup (music) redirects you to this definition:

Bastard pop is a musical genre which, in its purest form, consists of the combination (usually by digital means) of the music from one song with the a cappella from another. Typically, the music and vocals belong to completely different genres. At their best, bastard pop songs strive for musical epiphanies that add up to considerably more than the sum of their parts.

Mashup (web application hybrid) is defined as:

A mashup is a website or web application that seamlessly combines content from more than one source into an integrated experience.

Content used in mashups is typically sourced from a third party via a public interface or API. Other methods of sourcing content for mashups include Web feeds (e.g. RSS or Atom) and JavaScript includes.

The etymology of this term almost certainly derives from its similar use in pop music.

Many people are experimenting with mashups using eBay, Amazon, Google, and Yahoos APIs.

So I did a turn at Online Information yesterday. I talked about implementing a content management system at the BBC (intranet). I think it went ok.

Occasionally I search for my name on the web in the vain hope that one day I will no longer be buried beneath hundreds of thousands of prices for network interface cards (NICs).

And to my great astonishment that day has arrived (at least on Google anyway)!

I had to capture this as no doubt tomorrow the search algorithms will be adjusted to counter vanity attacks like this (ok and the search spammers as well).

This is my first post from “downstairs.”

As of this weekend, we have wi-fi at home (thanks Pai!).

Now if something springs to mind I can grab the laptop (for the first time in ages the “lap” bit counts) and check it out, or write it, or email someone.

Up until now this has been something that happened in the “box bedroom” - our home study. Separate, removed, away from everyone else.

Will it become a useful addition to our living space? Will it intrude? I guess it’s all just a matter of how we use it.

1. Using a shredder. It’s very cathartic!
2. Regularly transferring my ideas and actions from my PocketMod and emailing them to myself.

PocketMod, my new PDA!

3 things that cross over between my work and my life:

• A desire to understand how things work. (What goes on under the bonnet? What do they feel like to use? What’s the story behind the design?)
• Using technology to help connect people with each other and with information
• My love of language(s)

Not to be confused with “work-life balance”.

Thanks to John Watson who’s behind flagrant disregard (he’s got some other flickr stuff there too)

Springcleaning his blog Tom Loosemore found this pdf document outlining what he thought were the key components for a successful online community when he applied for a job with Microsoft in 1996. Everything you need to know distilled in to one side of paper. He was offered the job but didn’t fancy the commute to Reading!

“Hive, hive, hive. Self-Organise.”

A piece in today’s Guardian Online lists some of the web’s top search engines as a “new search war breaks out”

I’ve set them up below for easy access.

The groupings are taken from the paper version of the Guardian. (One or two missing from the original list until I have time to get them to work)

Chip and PIN as a method of payment has been in the UK for a couple of months now, and according to all the major card companies is the most secure system so far.

According to this info on UK government website crimereduction.gov.uk, the initiative is costing £1.1billion. This to combat plastic fraud which in 2002 cost £424.6million in the UK.

Since 1st January stores not using chip and PIN get less protection and insurance against fraud. This was used as the “incentive” to buy in early.

So what’s it like to use?

Not a great user experience for me so far. And canvassing opinion in a quick straw poll friends agree.

It wouldn’t take a lot to improve it. Train staff better. Make it easier for customers to use, no awkward leaning over the sweet rack on the sales counter…

I was just wondering why we don’t seem to have benefitted from what other countries have learnt.

Compared to France, where they’ve used chip and PIN for years, we’ve got a lot of catching up to do. There the “PIN pads” usually have hoods which cover your hand enough so that others can’t see what your PIN is.

Here in the UK all the machines I’ve used so far are more like overweight pocket calculators.

They’re rarely on long enough leads, so you find yourself punching numbers in to the thing while it’s dangling in mid-air or being held by the sales assistant or waiter, many of whom seem bewildered by the new technology themselves.

I make a point of covering my number punching hand with my other hand but for some reason it all feels quite self-conscious, even though that’s what all the advice says.

This from razorhead’s blog which I stumbled on the other day and is well worth a read.

There are five types of road crossing in use on UK roads:

1. Refuge: these are the islands in the centre of the road usually demarked by illuminated keep left/right signs which have be battered by cars that managed neither.
2. Zebra: marked by black and white stripes across the road, sometimes accompanied by Belisha Beacons and in 1951 marked the horribly cute reference to animals.
3. PELICAN: he name derives from a pseudo-acronym for ‘Pedestrian Light Controlled’, with the ‘o’ changed to an ‘a’ in deference to the bird. These feature a green or red cross/don’t cross figure on the signal on the opposite side of the road.
4. PUFFIN: these differ from pelican crossing by having the red/green man on the control box where the pedestrian presses the button to cross. There is no ‘blinking-green-man’ phase, but are fitted with extra sub-surface sensors to extend the crossing time if there is high demand or cancel the demand if the pedestrian moves away.
5. Toucan: are similar to puffin crossings but cyclists are also permitted to use them. The name is contrived from ‘Two Can Cross’.
6. Pegasus: similar to a pelican but feature a high mounted button for horse-riders. The red/green man is replaced by a red/green horse.

In today’s Online section in the Guardian there’s a piece by Jim McClellan on the success of Flickr (a photo sharing and organising website). According to co-founder Caterina Fake, in less than a year its membership has already reached 245,000 and grows at a rate of 5-10% a week.

McClellan discusses the possibilities brought about by Flickr and other social software services on the web, many of which use folksonomies - people-generated tags or metadata - including the impact of del.icio.us and technorati amongst others. These sites help us to organise our own experience of the web as well as brining us together with other people around common themes and interests.

What I’ve been wondering is how sustainable these services are once they break in to the mainstream (if they haven’t already done so). I can’t help thinking each will reach a critical mass where there is too much tagged content to cope with to be useful beyond the personal and “closely” social.

In the same way blogs offer a valuable filter on the labyrinthine plethora of information on the internet (and the “blogosphere” itself), services such as del.icio.us and technorati offer a chance to put a filter on the filters.

What happens next? Is someone already inventing the filters’ filters’ filter?

I’ve been getting around to setting up a blog for ages…

One of the things that’s put me off is making a decision on what software to go with, what account type to buy etc. etc.

I was pointed towards WordPress by another PlusNet user in the discussion forum and so I thought I’d have a go at setting it up in my webspace using my PlusNet account.

I’ve put together a brief step-by-step set up guide which hopefully might save other folks a little time…

1. In order to install the software, which runs using PHP and mySQL, you’ll need to activate your CGI webspace. Do this by logging in to the Member’s Centre on the PlusNet portal, then click on Website settings under My Account. Here you’ll find the option for CGI where you can click through and activate. It’s worth doing this as the first step as it can take up to 24 hours to kick in.
2. Activate your mySQL database using the PlusNet members’ portal. This also takes 24 hours to kick in, and your username, password and host information will be emailed to you at the address you’ve registered on the portal
3. Download Wordpress and unzip it locally
4. Follow the step-by-step installation instructions on the WordPress website - this is where you specify the database user name, password and host
   [16 Feb 2005: See also comments from Chris re: name of database and where to upload to in your webspace]
5. It’s a good idea to copy and paste the Admin password you get upon installation of your WordPress site in to a text file for safe keeping. You can log in to your blog and change it to something more memorable.
6. View and edit your blog, you can start writing immediately… the homepage will be in the directory where you FTPed your files to on your CGI webspace. In my case this is http://cgi.priceswainson.plus.com/ (the homepage is index.php)

Tip: If you’ve registered a domain name with PlusNet you can serve your blog via this domain name. First you’ll need to configure your domain information in the PlusNet portal. You’ll then need to raise a Help ticket on the site and once it’s picked up it will take about 24 hours to kick in. I’ve done this so that http://www.beatnic.co.uk/ resolves http://cgi.priceswainson.plus.com

I hope this is of some use to other people. From time to time I’ll post up on what it’s been like to use and tips on how to change templates, stylesheets etc.

So far the whole experience has been very positive :-)

So I’ve finally taken the plunge…