Armstrong or Cernan?
Jun 22, 2009 | space, zeitgeist
Looks like the world is waking up again to the greatness of Apollo again. Perhaps my dull space related ramblings herein will be scoffed at less now. Perhaps not. Anyway, I was watching some of the various Apollo/Moon related coverage last night (who's surprised?) and...
Attack Decay Sustain Release
Jun 18, 2009 | Technology
At risk of being accused of the geekiest blog post ever, I give you a very good punt at the title. (Although this is perhaps more autobiographical/social history than full-on tech gunk.) In the beginning there was only silence. As an 11 year old boy I sat at the my...
Language of The Lazy Football Cliché
Jun 15, 2009 | zeitgeist
With the football season over and the transfer window in full flow, there is a dearth of real football news so you get a lot of speculation and nonsense instead. It don't half bring out the clichés. So I was reminded of an oft repeated conversation between me and...
More Content Vicar?
Jun 11, 2009 | Technology
Thirst for content can, from time to time, expose a lot of bland nonsense. There are sites/content authors that mistake lists of obvious blurb for content. We all know who they are, I don't need to name and shame (the list would be too long). A large part of the...
Stumbling Through Twitter
Jun 11, 2009 | Technology
StumbleUpon has, for many years now, been my way of finding new, interesting stuff on the Web. The stats today show that I have 'Stumbled' over 25000 times. It solved the problem of getting stuff you might like 'pushed' to you and removed the need to go looking for...
PhotoBlog : Bruges
May 29, 2009 | Photography
Bruges. Get a camera. Go there. The blog here has been a bit quiet while I gadded about Europe for a week. Since coming back I've been wading through 1291 photos and this is the first set for the blog. I'll get them on the photo site soon enough. I had been really...
Twitter and the #fixreplies Issues
May 13, 2009 | Technology
There has been a lot of Twitter-chat today about the change that was introduced by Twitter that stopped people seeing '@' replies from people who they weren't following.There was a lot of moaning and groaning throughout the day and later news suggested that this was...
So You Want To Start A Company
May 5, 2009 | Technology
So you want to start a company. Good for you. No, seriously, it will be good for you. Although there will inevitably be times when it will feel exactly the opposite. At the very beginning, the immediate problems are obvious "I need product, I need customers, I need an...
Picking a Company or Product Name
Apr 30, 2009 | Technology
So, you have an idea for a business or product. How do you come up with a name? Here's a few tips.1. Pick a word you like and look it up in a foreign language.There are many online dictionaries for this. Look for something memorable, that has an obvious hook and no...
Caution : Optimism ahead
Apr 28, 2009 | Technology, zeitgeist
It's good to be optimistic. And I love people with great drive and belief. But there is, unfortunately, a limit on how far a wave of optimism can take you up the beach before sucking you back into the shark-infested depths.My problem, as has often been pointed out, is...
How to Write Better PowerPoint Presentations
Apr 23, 2009 | Technology
Everyone moans about it, but you can't get away from it. People use PowerPoint a lot. And, for the most part, the issue isn't with the tool itself. It is far more to do with how people use it. I've been suffering this for too many years now, so this is a small attempt...
PhotoBlog : London
Apr 16, 2009 | Photography
Been a while since I've done a photo blog post.So, I went to London for 6 days. It was disappointingly very dull in the weather department. Still, I had set myself a single goal of doing some night shooting as more practice before the forthcoming Sucata Split Run and,...
Floccinaucinihilipilification
Apr 8, 2009 | Photography, Technology
Who knew I'd find a valid(ish) reason to use that word. Hopefully I've not stretched it too far.*For a good few years now I've been giving most of photography away online for free. I now have well over 300K downloads from two sites alone. People often say to me "you...
Knicky Knicky Nine Doors
Apr 7, 2009 | zeitgeist
I was awoken at 1am by my doorbell. Except that it wasn't my doorbell. It was one the noises my doorbell can make, just not the usual one. I've seen this before, you can make my doorbell go off with the remote for the car. Such is the way with wireless doorbells.As I...
Rallying Cry
Mar 24, 2009 | zeitgeist
Not long now until the next mad dash across Europe in a banger. At the end of May, I will be doing another charity car run (along with the others members of the team). It has suddenly got very close.We were very aware on the last run that people donated money in the...
14th August 1987
Mar 16, 2009 | Photography, zeitgeist
It is entirely self-evident that the 14th August 1987 is getting on for nearly 22 years ago. And, it is certainly no great surprise to get pulled up short by the recurring realisation that things that feel like yesterday are actually a quarter of a century...
Man O’ Chanter
Mar 10, 2009 | zeitgeist
It is not very often that my drive to work inspires a blog post. And it was the general loveliness of a Colin Baxter style morning either. It was an odd moment at the lights at Barnton.On days when I am without the entertaining chat of @stuartamdouglas, I often avoid...
Blu-Ray Review : The Fall
Feb 23, 2009 | Blu-Ray Review
Buying a film solely on the basis of being promised stunning visuals is perhaps not always the best of approaches. But since that is what Blu-Ray & HD is all about, I didn't hesitate in pre-ordering The Fall [Blu-ray] [2008].You can tell that, at its inception,...
Personal Google Brand Measures
Feb 17, 2009 | Technology
Let's get one thing clear from the start. I am not a Greek English Lexicon. Although, judging from my web logs and analytics, many accidentally think I am.The fact that I share a name (at least in search index terms) with a book, led me to consider how much people...
Photography Book Reviews
Feb 5, 2009 | Photography
Over the years, I've started to become an avid collector of photography books. I love bookshops and the photo book section is always where I head first. Thing is, most books are mainly available online and a photo book isn't something that is easy to size up...