curry at bobs for @bennuk birthday with lovely people
A News Junkie’s Election Resources
My name is Amy and I’m a recovering News Junkie.
I do well these days, I only check the BBC news website 3 or 4 times a day but there have been periods in my life where I would live on news sites, devouring the soap opera / action movie / documentory that is our wonderful world.
Today is the General Election. If you are eligable and you haven’t voted – go vote now. Chris Alexander has explained this more eloquently than I could in his post this morning “Today is the General Election. There’s no excuse not to vote”
For those of you that have voted and are ready to sit back and watch the drama unfold, I would like to share with you my current news-junkie-fix set up.
1. BBC – BBC News Live Election Results Page – This looks like it’s shaping up to be a very useful page, this will be on my laptop screen tonight
2. News Now – News Now’s Election Page
I have been addicted to this site since that September a few years ago when all the news websites went down, this site remained avalibale in patches and bought in feeds from hundreds of different websites from all over the world. It agrigates news stories from hundreds of sources – If you want to get all the news about anything, this is the place to go.
3. Twitter and TweetTabs
I get lots of my breaking news and most certainly interesting commentary from Twitter these days. I will be using TweetTabs (made by the every talented dtsn - http://www.dtsn.co.uk) to keep an eye on the hashtags. Here’s my set up – http://tweettabs.com/tabs/%23ge2010/%23ukvote/%23ReadingW/
If you want to find your local constituency’s hash tag, check the list on this website http://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/ge2010-hashtags/
What ever you’re doing, I hope you enjoy your election night. Please share your favourite resources in the comments!
Final Thought When something exciting happens in the tech world – a new product lauch etc – there is ALWAYS a life blogging feed from someone, seems weird to not be going to EnGadget for live blogging of the election!
UPDATES:
Live Blogging from the Farmer Guardian – a different take no doubt
Posted in General, Tech Musings.
Use your data intelligently or face the wrath of spurned woman everywhere
As you scamper your merry way over the playgrounds of the internet you will accumulate logins to various locations – forums, shopping sites, services – in return the companies that run the sites get your email address and a few bits and bobs about you.
This is like crack to them.
If you manage to toggle the obligatory “tick me if you do want to not get the occasional newsletter” check box correctly at the bottom of the form you may never hear from them again. Well done. But sometiems you DO want to recieve their newsletter.
I have no problem with companies I like having my details, I appreciate Firebox emailing me new and shiny things and the day just would not be complete without my Daily Dilbert (tell me I’m not the only one who is convinced Scott Adams hides in the cupboard in my office and then draws what happened yesterday for today?).
But what really frustrates me is when these companies don’t make sensible – or any – use of the data they have on me.
A number of companies have my birth date – but only a small percentage of shopping sites email me congratulations and tempting me with the chance of buying myself a present.
Why? It is NOT hard to use data intelligently and treat it as information.
My day-to-day world revolves around a rather excellent Document Management and Collaboration System (http://www.unit4collaborationsoftware.com), I deal with data and information day in and day out and I’m afraid it has become one of my passions – it may help if you imagine me climbing onto my soap box round about now.
Data and information are different things. Data is pointless without context, once you give it a context and actually DO something with it it becomes information, and informaiton is power. What these companies have on us is data, but if they spent even a little time looking at it they could turn it into information that would become extreamly powerful. For example, a shopping website knows that you always send a package to a Mr X around the middle of January and you always use express delivery – how many years in a row would you have to do this before they worked out that you always manage to forget your second-cousin’s birthday until the last minute? If that company emailed you to remind you wouldn’t you feel some loyalty towards them, some warmth that for once, this year your Great Aunt Nora wont tut at you for forgetting her beloved darling’s birthday?
Let me put it another way – Information is where the money is. Conversly, mis-use of data, or the lack of translating data into information can cause a company to lose money and/or potential revenue – and even worse, it may even lose it its reputation.
What kicked all of this off? I’m glad you asked… A few days ago I received an email – a ’special offer’ – from a company that I had signed up with over a year and a half ago. This email made me hopping mad at the complete disregard for the informaiton they held on me. It would have been so simple for them to realise that the mail shot they sent me was wholly inappropriate on many many levels but did they? No, they went ahead and because of this carelessness and lack of attend to the big picture they not only do they made themselves look stupid but damaged the reputation of the company they were promoting.
I received an email from hitched.co.uk offering me £200 off a wedding dress.
Slightly peculiar but innocent enough you may think – no, not when you consider that when signing up for hitched.co.uk they ask you for the prospective date of your wedding – as far as hitched.co.uk are concerned I am already married.
What type of company sends offers for wedding dresses to respectably married woman!?
And if on the off chance – as in my case – the recipient turned out to not be married in the end, wouldn’t you think that sending such an offer – complete with imagery of smiling, supposedly happy brides – to someone who thought they would get married but then didn’t wasn’t entirely tactful?
Companies out there I beg of you, use your data sensibly – is really isn’t hard to prevent issues like this occurring if you just look at the data you have about your customer base and by applying a little bit of logic, turn that into useful information. Information that if used correctly may just save you from losing customers.
This is like crack to them.
If you manage to toggle the obligatory “tick me if you do want to not get the occasional newsletter” check box correctly at the bottom of the form you may never hear from them again. Well done. But sometimes you DO want to receive their newsletter.
I have no problem with companies I like having my details, I appreciate Firebox emailing me new and shiny things and the day just would not be complete without my Daily Dilbert (tell me I’m not the only one who is convinced Scott Adams hides in the cupboard in my office and then draws what happened yesterday for today?).
But what really frustrates me is when these companies don’t make sensible – or any – use of the data they have on me.
A number of companies have my birth date – but only a small percentage of shopping sites email me congratulations and tempting me with the chance of buying myself a present.
Why? It is NOT hard to use data intelligently and treat it as information.
My day-to-day world revolves around a rather excellent Document Management and Collaboration System (http://www.unit4collaboration.com), I deal with data and information day in and day out and I’m afraid it has become one of my passions – it may help if you imagine me climbing onto my soap box round about now.
Data and information are different things. Data is pointless without context, once you give it a context and actually DO something with it it becomes information, and informaiton is power. What these companies have on us is data, but if they spent even a little time looking at it they could turn it into information that would become extremely powerful. For example, a shopping website knows that you always send a package to a Mr X around the middle of January and you always use express delivery – how many years in a row would you have to do this before they worked out that you always manage to forget your second-cousin’s birthday until the last minute? If that company emailed you to remind you wouldn’t you feel some loyalty towards them, some warmth that for once, this year your Great Aunt Nora wont tut at you for forgetting her beloved darling’s birthday?
Let me put it another way – Information is where the money is. Conversely, mis-use of data, or the lack of translating data into information can cause a company to lose money and/or potential revenue – and even worse, it may even lose it its reputation.
What kicked all of this off? I’m glad you asked… A few days ago I received an email – a ’special offer’ – from a company that I had signed up with over a year and a half ago. This email made me hopping mad at the complete disregard for the information they held on me. It would have been so simple for them to realise that the mail shot they sent me was wholly inappropriate on many many levels but did they? No, they went ahead and because of this carelessness and lack of attend to the big picture they not only do they made themselves look stupid but damaged the reputation of the company they were promoting.
I received an email from hitched.co.uk offering me £200 off a wedding dress.
Slightly peculiar but innocent enough you may think – no, not when you consider that when signing up for hitched.co.uk they ask you for the prospective date of your wedding – as far as hitched.co.uk are concerned I am already married.
What type of company sends offers for wedding dresses to respectably married woman!?
And if on the off chance – as in my case – the recipient turned out to not be married in the end, wouldn’t you think that sending such an offer – complete with imagery of smiling, supposedly happy brides – to someone who thought they would get married but then didn’t wasn’t entirely tactful?
Companies out there I beg of you, use your data sensibly – is really isn’t hard to prevent issues like this occurring if you just look at the data you have about your customer base and by applying a little bit of logic, turn that into useful information. Information that if used correctly may just save you from losing customers.
Email from hitched.co.uk
Posted in General, Tech Musings, whining.
Policy of not buying stuff – update
It’s been about a week now and I haven’t bought anything except food. So how’s it going?
Not to bad at all… this worries me, surely this should be harder?
Have I had any withdrawal symptoms? Not yet, but then I haven’t exposed myself to temptation, no ebaying, no amazon-ing, no wondering though town on my way to buy lunch – this week it might be time to see just how good I can be.
I can’t find my round hair brush at the moment, it must be somewhere but I have no idea where. It is highly probiably that had this been two weeks again I would have bought another one when I passed though boots yesterday but I didn’t and you know something amazing? My world haven’t fallen apart – ok my hair looks crazy but when doesn’t it?
All in all, it’s not going too badly
Things I thought I wanted this week but I don’t really want or need:
- A round hair brush – I have one somewhere, it’ll turn up, I have other brushes
- Rockband instruments – where would I keep them and when would I play them?
- A tripod – I still really want this, if I still want one after this is over then maybe I might get on
- A Nexus One – you’re just being silly now
Lets see how it goes….
Posted in General.
Lent Experiment 2010
It’s almost lent – the year is rushing past, I can’t believe my last post was about Christmas!
Traditionally Lent is a time when people of a certain persuasion try and give something up for 40 days. No matter what your religious views are this time of year is a good excuse to give something new a try – whether it’s taking up something you’ve never tried before or giving a go at life without something.
Most years I give up chocolate and buying books. If you know me you’ll realise that not only is this a trial but it does save me a considerable amount of money – not to mention the effect it has on my piles of “books to be read” but this year I’m going to try something different.
I’m not going to buy anything. At all. Ish.
I am going to resist all new gadgets, domain name, flashy camera accessories, book and must-have do-hickies for the next few months.
I have everything I want, so why do I buy things? I have a wardrobe full of clothes (ok, 3), a house full of gadgets – is there really anything so spectacular that will appear in the next 40 days that I will just be unable to live without?! Even I, the most optimistic technology-lover in the world can’t believe that.
Why am I doing this? I wax lyrical about how I’m fed up by the advertising industry assuming I’m their slave, to be manipulated into buying everything new and shiny, by being made to feel that what I have isn’t good enough – and that is all true but quite frankly I also would rather like to save some money after the fun I had over Christmas and the joys of paying for my summer holiday in January!
There is another reason – I want to enjoy the things I have – I have an xbox game that I played for a weekend then haven’t touched because I bought another one and I’ve been playing instead. Acquiring new things doesn’t necessarily increase your happiness, it just points it in a new direction that may not be necessary at all.
So here are my rules
1. I really DO need a new memory card for my camera, I’m going to Rome for a long weekend and not being able to take as many photos as I want would be criminal – that I’m allowed to buy
2. No randomly buying things I want today just so I don’t buy them next week, that’s cheating
3. Try and not order £3+ hot chocolate in Starbucks when I really do prefer the £1.50 Chai Tea
And the get out clauses –
1. If I NEED – truly NEED something then that’s ok – i.e. fixing my house if it falls down
2. Gifts as needed
3. if I NEED something for my trip to Rome later this month then that may be allowed to slip though
What is not covered:
1. Food – but try and be sensible girl,
2. Buying food and drinks whilst out
As my good friend Anthony often says to me, in his wonderful Scottish accent “What do you want Amy? What do you actually want? And is that what you NEED?”
So what do you think? Am I crazy? Do you think this is a bad idea – or do you think that perhaps, just perhaps having less crap in your life might help you focus on the things that need doing? Give me your thoughts, rants and ideas in the comments. I’ll be sure to keep you all updated 
Posted in General.
The Lot of the Geeks at Christmas
Well my fellow geeks – are you ready for Christmas?
No, I ‘m not refering to your shopping and cooking lists or even if you’ve wrapped everything – I’m talking about your mental preperation.
Yes, it’s the time of year where most of you will be “going home” to your beloved but perhaps not-as-tech-savy-as-you families.
You KNOW what that means don’t you? Oooh yes, time to become the 24-7 100% tech-support go-to guy or gal once moce.
Time for a deep breath.
You know the scene, Uncle Fred has bought little Sabastian the latest electronic do-hicky with bells, whistls, spinny bit and of course the requisit annoying electronic beep, and the only person in the house that will have an electronic screwdriver small enough to open the battery hatch is you – so that’s chrismtas morning 6am to 6:25am dealt with.
Then your mother wont be able to open the plastic packageing for her new suduko machine that father bought her after consulting you last week on your mobile – in the middle of a meeting with the seniour management at work, who also all had to break off to have similar convisations with their own elderly family members.
This also needs batteries inserted behind a little door held on with a little small screw. Which you have trouble dealing with as by this time you’ve cut your own finger on the evil-plastic-attack packaging.
Aunt Mable is now blaming you – and the sole representitive of the ‘technical’ industry for the annoying sounds coming from little Sabastian’s electronic do-hicky – a tirade that will only get worse as the sherry supply depleats.
9am and the phone goes, nephew 1 has got a tamagotchi for christmas – yes they still exist – and he can’t work out how to feed it. Luckily as a child of the 80s/90s you manage to tech-support this over the phone.
Time for a quck cuppa before dashing off to church, surely there wont be any technology to get in the way of some good solid carol singing? Ha!
On the way out the vicar shakes your hand and mentions that the church’s website needs some TLC and gosh darnnit isn’t that something you could perhaps help with in the new year?
Back home and you’ve bearly pulled off your new christmas gloves with the pom-poms on that great aunt florrance sent you before mother thrusts you the brand you oven timer and asks you to set it for 40 mins rather than 40 seconds.
And so it goes on…
But my dear breathren-in-tech, don’t dispare, take heart – as the sole techie you will get to play with everyone’s brand new technology over the Christmas period – and if that doesn’t colsole you, at least you know you’ll have a few days break before the family go out and buy things in the january sales!
Don’t roll your eyes at your less-able relations dear geek, be patient with them – to them all these things with buttons are a dark art and to them you apear as a worlock of great power, being able to command them to do your will… apart from getting that new toy of sabastian’s to shut up. That is a feat that’s even beyond you.
Merry Christmas one and all
Love Amy xxx
No, I ‘m not refering to your shopping and cooking lists or even if you’ve wrapped everything – I’m talking about your mental preperation.
Yes, it’s the time of year where most of you will be “going home” to your beloved but perhaps not-as-tech-savy-as-you families.
You KNOW what that means don’t you? Oooh yes, time to become the 24-7 100% tech-support go-to guy or gal once moce.
Time for a deep breath. You can do this.
You know the scene, Christmas Morning. Uncle Fred has bought little Sabastian the latest electronic do-hicky with bells, whistls, spinny bit and of course the requisit annoying electronic beep, and the only person in the house that will have an electronic screwdriver small enough to open the battery hatch is you – so that’s Christmas morning 6am to 6:25am dealt with.
Then your mother wont be able to open the plastic packageing for her new suduko machine that father bought her after consulting you last week on your mobile – in the middle of a meeting with the development team at work, who also all had to break off to have similar convisations with their own elderly family members.
This also needs batteries inserted behind a little door held on with a little small screw. Which you have trouble dealing with as by this time you’ve cut your own finger on the evil-plastic-attack packaging.
Aunt Mable is now blaming you – and the sole representative of the ‘technical’ industry for the annoying sounds coming from little Sebastian’s electronic do-hicky – a tirade that will only get worse as the sherry supply depleats.
9am and the phone goes, nephew 1 has got a tamagotchi for christmas – yes they still exist – and he can’t work out how to feed it. Luckily as a child of the 80s/90s you manage to tech-support this over the phone for a device you’ve never seen or used. You are just THAT good.
Time for a quck cuppa before dashing off to church, surely there wont be any technology to get in the way of some good solid carol singing? Ha!
On the way out the vicar shakes your hand and mentions that the church’s website needs some TLC and gosh darnnit isn’t that something you could perhaps help with in the new year?
Back home and you’ve bearly pulled off your new Christmas gloves with the pom-poms on that Great Aunt Florrance sent once again this year you before mother thrusts you the brand you oven timer and asks you to set it for 40 mins rather than 40 seconds.
And so it goes on…
But my dear breathren-in-tech, don’t dispare, take heart – as the sole techie you will get to play with everyone’s brand new technology over the Christmas period – and if that doesn’t console you, at least you know you’ll have a few days break before the family goes out and buys the latest gadgets in the January sales and calls you to set them up!
Don’t roll your eyes at your less-able relations dear geek, be patient with them – to them all these things with buttons are a dark art and to them you apear as a worlock of great power, being able to command them to do your will… apart from getting that new toy of Sabastian’s to shut up. That is a feat that’s even beyond you.
Merry Christmas one and all
Love Amy xxx
Posted in Tech Musings, whining.
Is the customer always right?
“It makes my eyes hurt, but this is what the client wants”
This plaintiff cry was heard drifting over the office from the front end team last week. Nothing that unusual about that – they are not the most reticent of teams at Collaboration Towers, but it was the content of the cry as well as the resigned and world weary tone that irked me.
If the idea / request – in this case an interface design for a web app – is that bad, should we really agree with the customer and tell let them continue in the belief that they are right?
Where, in fact, do you draw the line between providing service and being a glorified automotron?
A large part of me thinks that these people – clients – are paying us for our expertise and our experience – shouldn’t we then give them the benefit of that experience? Are we doing a bad job but actually doing what the client would think of as a good job?
We should respect our clients enough to treat them like adults rather than toddlers who will throw a tantrum if their every mad whim is not served immediately – surely this is the different between employing a code monkey and a true craftsman?
Would you draw a circuit diagram and tell an electrician to wire you your house using this self-drawn circuit diagram?
ok, bad example – a lot of you would be capable of this without causing your house to burn down in an electrical fire but go with the metaphore people!
If you don’t want to do it for the client, do it for yourself – do you really want to be the person that has to always explain the lemon in your portfolio as “This wouldn’t be how I would have done it, but this is what the client wanted” with a shrug of the shoulders? How do you think that makes you look – does it make you look like you care about your client’s user experience?
The client almost always had the right idea for their particular problem – and lets face it, they (hopefully) know their industry / team / department / space better than you do – but the nuts and bolts of the implementation and execution should be left to the experts – that’s they pay you for.
Please - don’t let your clients accept sub-standard implementations
Some bugs in the wrong environment
Posted in Tech Musings, whining.
What we can learn from… NaNoWriMo
It’s November which means that the internet is a quiet, eary place. Where once there was mindless chatter there is only dedicated silence with the occasional cry of “Another thousand done” or “What IS the collective noun for bee hives”
It’s NaNoWriMo time – National Novel Writing Month – that one month of the year where hungreds of thousands of people sit down to churn out a 50,000 word novel in November.
And a supprising number of people manage it, and here’s why. The philosphy of NaNoWriMo is to just get the words out, get the story told, write, write, write – don’t edit, you can do that later, just keep going. You don’t even need a plot.
Or in other words, stop shilly-shallying and just get on with it
And it’s liberating – my novel just had a few hundred word rant about elbow patches on tweed jackets (why!?) – it felt good. The creative dam was broken and before I knew it, several chapters had flown from my fingertips onto Textpad (oh how I love thee).
And then I got side tracked…
You may have gathered that I have a couple of Web Apps that I would like to sit down and work on but until recently they had only been in my mind, nothing had happened.
My first road block – I felt I should be useing a framework but I was reluctant to sit down and learn the behometh that is Zend but if that’s the framework that work has adopted learning something else may not be productive. And so it went on, round and round in my head, excuse after excuse and nothing got written.
Until last week – my novel lies abandoned, we may never know what Cameron and Jake were building inside that mysterious research centre, or why Alice the coffee girl dispised Gerald so much but they served their purpose, they broke the dam in my mind, the wall between me and just getting on with what I needed to do.
So dear readers, here is my NaNpoWriMo inspired advice, stop thinking, just develop – you can polish later but just start. Once you start you KNOW you wont be able to put it down, you will keep developing, refining, improving but as long as you keep to the matra of just powering though you may actually end up with an application that functions rather than just a slice of pie in the sky.
Posted in General.
Gingerbread Men
Sometimes there is only one thing that will do – dunking a gingerbread man in a hot cup of tea.
This recipe is adapted from my mother’s recipe. Like all my cooking it can be open to interpretatin depending on your mood – the last batch I made included Allspice as well as cinnamon and ginger.
12oz plain flour
1 level teaspoon bicarb of soda
2 teaspoons ground ginger – I always double this though to 4
4oz Butter – regular, make sure it’s a bit soft
6oz soft brown sugar – this is important, this is what makes it taste good and unlike other gingerbread, change to golden caster for a lighter one, soft dark brown sugar or soft light sugar also give different results – all good.
4 tablespoons golden syrup
1 egg
1. Sift flour, bicarb and ginger together – if you want to add other spices (cinnemon, all spice, nutmeg) do this now too – be creative people. your kitchen should smell of Christmas at this point
2. Rub in butter, add sugar
3. Warm the syrup / put hte can in a pan of hot water and add with the egg to make a dough
4. Shape! Makes about 20 cookies or one gingerbread house
5. Cook for 10-12 minutes at 190C on greased baking sheets
If they end up too hard that’s because they were a tad thin, but these are perfect for eating with a cup of tea!
Why haven't I written a specification for my own product?
If I started a project at work and leapt straight into the code without a specification and only a vague idea of where it was going, I would think myself crazy – and think those that got me into this situation beyond polite description – so why on earth have I done this to myself on a larger-than-usual personal project?
Do I really think it’s not important enough to spec?! Does it mean that little to me? Ha!
For the past week or so I have been “tickling” at an idea I’ve had – I need something to work on to make me learn Zend Framework as there just wont be time for me to learn it at work (oh that could fill a blog post all of it’s own!) and last night I got frustrated with the whole thing – it was only in the cold light of a meeting at work today where I went off on a 2 or 3 minute rant about doing something without a spec that it hit me, I couldn’t get going on this project because I hadn’t clearly defined my goals.
As the internet of today would say… Face Palm!
Why does writing down what you want help? In the corporate world a specification can be thought of as an agreement between the client and the development team – this is what we say that you said you wanted. It can be signed off against and gone back to after delivery to make sure things happened as everyone expected.
There is no reason why you shouldn’t hold yourself to the same high standard as your clients hold you.
This is why I’ve called a halt to messing about with code in a vague hope it’ll magically shape itself into the half-baked idea I have in my head and I’m pinning myself down (quite a feat I can tell you) to shaping my thoughts and, shock horror, writing not only a technical specification but a requirements document as well.
And you know what? It feels darn good!
Posted in Tech Musings.