timandkathy.co.uk

dConstruct 2008: part two

(If you’re short on things to do, part one contains fascinating details of my journey and dinner) Thursday morning brought a slight respite from the high winds and torrential rain of the previous night. Breakfast in the hotel was really, really good: muesli/dried cranberries and yoghurt followed by my choice of Eggs Benedict. Oh, and the Smoothie of the Day. Looking at the map, I reckoned that Clearleft’s offices (the location of the workshops) were about half a mile away - I estimated a 10 minute walk. Read more...

dConstruct 2008: part one

Last week I made the annual pilgrimage to Brighton for dConstruct - one of the UK’s leading grass-roots Web conferences. Now in its fourth year, the theme of the conference this time was “Designing the social Web”, a topic increasingly of relevance to what we do at IOP Publishing. “Social Software” is merely software that gets better the more people use it; it’s not necessarily about creating the next Facebook or MySpace, and many (though not all) sites could benefit from social features. Read more...

The Web Versioning genie needs to be re-bottled

Today I got embroiled in a debate with Pete and Brian on Twitter about the term Web 2.0 and its increasing meaninglessness. This was only a few days after jumping on an old school friend’s use of the term, citing ReadWriteWeb’s …There is only the Web_is_no_web_30_there_is_no_web_20.php. I recall Phil saying I was “all about the 2.0”. And I still am, in that I think the New Web needs to be about real community if you’re going to profess that your site is a Community Website. Read more...

A further reduction in wisdom teeth

[This was a slightly incoherent ramble which I haven’t had time to tidy up. I blame the anaesthetic (for the incoherence) and Life in General (for the lack of time)] My lower 8s (bottom wisdom teeth to non-dentists) have been trouble since they first started coming through in 1999 - the gum pockets got infected before the teeth had even emerged, so I had to have a trip to the emergency dentist (in Melksham, as I recall) and some antibiotics. Read more...

Twitter Endgame?

As I write this, I’m trying (and failing) to load twitter.com/home. Oh - it just timed out. According to Is Twitter Down? it’s not down, but I can’t get to it. There have been no updates on my timeline for two hours now, which is quite rare for a working day. I just wonder whether Twitter has reached a natural end. You know “it was fun while it lasted” sort of thing. Read more...

Pearl Georgina Emily Beadle, 1938-2008

Pearl Beadle, my Mum, passed away peacefully yesterday morning, April 2nd 2008. She was surrounded by the love of her family during the last week. Many of the family were at her bedside when she left this life at 9.40 am. What can I say? Her passing came as no shock, given the events of the past ten days. Mum suffered a second stroke on Easter Monday, this time affecting the left side of her brain. Read more...

UK ISPs in new depths of customer hatred

BT, Virgin and Talktalk broker deal with Phorm.com.html?_r=1&oref=slogin, who intercept internet traffic, set anonymous cookies and deliver targeted ads… There are lots of comments on this Guardian article_might_call_it_resistance_95_say_theyll_opt_out_of_isps_datasharing_deal.html, including this one from martinusher: bq. I had a quick look at this system today on a technical website and it appears that the system effectively routes all your web traffic through a proxy server which records your browsing habits (and, while its about it, obscures your browsing habits from anyone else downstream from it). Read more...

If you build it (right), they will come (on any old platform, even a phone)

I’m rather enamoured of OpenID, the really neat, decentralised way to log in to any OpenID-supporting web site with one username/password. Simultaneously, I’ve had a Vox account since I was invited to try the beta pre-launch. It was moderately interesting as a community-based approach to blogging, but as I already have this blog I never used it for that purpose. At some point (I forget when), Vox became an OpenID provider. Read more...

Upsizing our car

!http://farm1.static.flickr.com/62/196222499_82457835d9_m.jpg!:http://www.flickr.com/photos/cokeeorg/196222499/ Renault Scenic Originally uploaded by CokeeOrg Our Christmas trip to Basingstoke (hello, glamorous life!) took place before Abigail arrived; nonetheless, the sheer amount of stuff we took with us and brought back (presents, kids’ toys etc.) rather emphasised how small our little Honda Jazz.aspx?model=291 is. Its small size but generous interior space is one of the reasons we bought it in the first place and its boot is one of the largest in its class, but now we have two kids we’re starting to consider upsizing to a larger car. Read more...

Mobile GMail, Twitter and why I'm no better than Crackberry addicts

At the company Christmas meeting/lunch/disco in 2006, I had the pleasure of sitting at the same table as one of our directors. During the meal he checked his email on his Blackberry (nicknamed “Crackberry” due to the addictive nature of anywhere, any time email) several times. I seem to remember telling him, in jest, to “put it away”. Fast forward to 2007. Three has the best-value data packages of the UK mobile operators: £2. Read more...
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