I’ve got accounts at Flickr, Del.icio.us, 43 Things, Technorati, GMail and Basecamp [1]. I use Flickr and Del.icio.us regularly, and I’m really getting into 43 Things. My recent change of blog platform has hobbled me somewhat, though, because Flickr and 43 Things will both act as clients for various blogging platforms (just not Textpattern, at least without some hackery); thus, when you post to either service, the post will also show up on your blog. Read more...

Apple have released the most affordable Mac ever: the Mac Mini. Starting at £339 (G4 1.25 GHz, 40GB HD, 256MB RAM, Combo drive; no monitor, keyboard or mouse), it represents a bit of a bargain. Yes you can trick it out to the max and push the price up to over £1000, but a simple boost to the RAM (to 512MB) and hard disk (to 80GB) and a Superdrive upgrade comes to £527. Read more...

The blogosphere is hotting up in the wake of the Jerry Springer — The Opera "scandal" — mostly free-speech advocates equating Christian=Right Wing Nutjob and not-outraged Christians actually looking beyond the swearing and so-called blasphemy to the message that was actually in the show. Maggi Dawn goes into the issue in some length, but here’s a snippet. As usual, her blog is well worth a read. The tragedy the opera highlights is the moral vacuity of a society that in the end, does nothing much more than "Eat, excrete and watch TV", and looks to celebrities for their hope and inspiration. Read more...

The romance of the FA Cup returned this weekend, as Yeovil, Oldham and Sheffield United (amongst others) defeated higher-division opponents. Yeading couldn’t do the same against Newcastle (and, thankfully, neither could Northampton beat Southampton — phew!), but acquitted themselves reasonably well against the Geordie Millionaires. I watched the Yeading game and, while they did brilliantly to only lose 2-0, I felt that they tried to be too ambitious too often: trying to play the ball out of defence; attempting to pass through (literally) opposing players; playing backwards into danger; giving the ball away etc etc. Read more...

Hey, y’all. By trying to get the BBC transmission of Jerry Springer: The Opera stopped, you’ve done the following: Given the show far more publicity than it previously had, or arguably deserved. There are people who didn’t know about the show before the protests but who will now be watching, with some relish, I would have thought. Confirmed the opinion in many non-Christians’ minds that we’re just a bunch of whinging killjoys. Read more...

Andy Budd has started Blog Aid — a way to help the survivors of the Asian Tsunami using your blog and any affiliate schemes you may have running. I didn’t have any affiliate scheme running, so (as you may have noticed) I’ve set up Google Adsense. I’ve no idea if it will make any money, but any I do make during January will be given to disaster relief efforts.

Yesterday our solution to the iMac’s storage problem arrived: a 120GB Maxtor hard drive with 8MB cache. Yum. Now I just have to work out how to migrate the data from old to new… Today my new mobile phone arrived. It’s a Sony Ericsson T630, which I’ve got with (effectively) free line rental for the first 12 months of an 18 month contract. I only wanted it for the Bluetooth facility, so that I can sync with the iMac, but I get to take part in the camera-phone/MMS revolution as well! Read more...

Along with Jez, I DJd at St. Philip and St. James’ Christmas Party last night. ‘Twas a good laugh, especially the cheese/80s mix I finished off with. I had the incredible foresight to record most of it with my Archos, so if you have a nice fat internet pipe, feel free to download it (29.3 MB mp3 file). It’s the proverbial curate’s egg, as the foldback wasn’t great (yeah — I know: “Poor Workman Blames Tool” shocker), and the EQ and levels aren’t great, but it might provide some aural joy; you never know. Read more...