The BigLig Thinks

iPhone apps midi-review – Birdhouse and TweetDeck

2009-10-02T15:47:00.003+01:00

I’m in the middle of preparing a huge post that lists all the apps I have on my new iPhone after the first month, but there’s a few I wanted to talk about with a little more detail than I’ll have room for. I’ve got sixty-eight apps on there at the moment, so they’re going to be lucky if they get two sentences each in the big review!

The first two are my Twitter apps, TweetDeck and Birdhouse.

Now, everyone loves Twitter, but isn’t two apps for it a bit over the top? Well, not really, because they’re both specialist apps that focus on different things.

Tweetdeck specialises in reading Twitter, especially for those (like me) who follow too many people.

In regular use, it looks like an ordinary Twitter client – a list of the latest tweets from all the people you follow. But if you swipe sideways, or push the columns button at the bottom, you get a different list of tweets that meet some rule you have defined.

For example, you could have a column with just the tweets from the celebrities you follow, or a column of the real people. You could have a column of all the tweets containing a particular phrase or word. (I have a column of tweets including the words “Exchange Server Down” which is really just pure schadenfreude on my part).

Essentially it lets you have a two-tier system. I still want to follow everyone that I do, but there are some groups of tweets I’m particularly interested in, and want to be able to quickly filter the list to just those. Tweetdeck lets me do that.

One particularly nice feature, by the way, is that it syncs my columns with the cloud, so I can see the same columns with Tweetdeck on my Mac as I do on my iPhone. Unfortunately the iPhone version, unlike the desktop versions, only does Twitter, and not Facebook. However, the iPhone Facebook client is pretty good, so I can wait for them to add this.

Birdhouse specialises in writing Twitter, especially for those (like me) who want to write more carefully.

While the traditional criticism of Twitter is that it’s just people writing about what they had for lunch, some people put more effort in. They write things that they hope are funny, or interesting, and to do this properly you need to be able to write drafts and edit them. Birdhouse does this. You type in a potential tweet, and it saves it. You can come back to it later, and revise it. You can rate it with marks out of five, and when you’re happy with it, you can send it out to the world.

That’s all Birdhouse does, and many people find this confusing. “A Twitter client that you can’t read Twitter with?” they cry. But, silly as it sounds to agonize over 140 characters, if you want

to improve the quality of your tweets, you need a place to keep them while you work on them.

Besides, if I really want to tell the world what I had with lunch, with photos, then Tweetdeck can handle that.

I just can't stop watching this...

2009-09-29T22:58:00.002+01:00

I mean, it's just... I think it... oh for goodness sake, just watch the bloomin' thing, will you?

They didn't rehearse the bit near the end where they jump over each other down the staircase: they just knew what they wanted, and did it.

Why modern life is fantastic.

2009-09-27T23:27:00.004+01:00

While I'm very proud to be a geek, there is one minor issue.

You see, I happen to be a - mostly lapsed - member of the special category known as the "Math Geek". Now, it's irritating enough that this uses outrageously American spelling, but the worst of it is that we are all supposed to like Bach. Yes, yes, he used numerical sequences in his work. Heard of rhythm? It's maths, and they all bloomin' well used it, but as part of their art.

And you know what takes the biscuit in all this? I do like Bach.

So, why modern life is fantastic: Herbert von Karjaran. Conducting Bach's Mass in B Minor. With the Vienna Philharmonic - who had to use the beautiful assumed name "Orchester der Gesellshaft der Musikfreunde in Wien" because of office politics! Elisabeth Schwarzkopf singing the Soprano. It's even recorded in Abbey Road!

Surely such an exquisite recording costs a King's ransom? Or could it be just £3.16 on Amazon MP3? I paid the money before starting this post, and the music will be on my iPod before I finish it.

Fantastic.

Celebrity

2009-09-25T18:25:00.003+01:00

I thought it might be interesting to share a list of ten "famous" people I've seen over the years, and what they were up to at the time.

I think it only fair not to include people who I saw just because they were working, so Her Majesty the Queen, Mayor Boris Johnson, Elvira, and Baron Bingham of Cornhill, KG, PC, QC, FBA are sadly missing from this list.

Jo Brand, who was ordering a curry.
Paul Daniels, who was trying to run me over in his car.
Geoffrey Howe, who was eating dinner.
Michael Jackson, who was behind me in the queue in WH Smiths. I have long since become accustomed to the fact that no-one will ever believe this, or even consider it plausible.
Ben Kingsley, who was going to Venice on the train.
Michael Portillo, who was trying to run me over in his official ministerial car. Actually, as a taxpayer, technically he was trying to run me over in MY car.
Phillip Schofeld, who was trying to run me over in his car. It says much about his qualities that he alone, upon realising he had missed, took the time to reverse and try again.
Shaun Scott, who was having a pint. He was in the Bill! Yes, I know everyone's been in the Bill, but he was an Inspector and everything.
Antony Worrall-Thompson, who was evaluating carrots in Waitrose.
Paula Yates, who was buying shoes.

I also saw an incredibly famous footballer once, having a jewellery store closed, but despite who he was being explained to me for at least 20 minutes I still haven't the faintest idea which one it was.

Rebuilding my Asus eeePC

2009-09-23T16:36:00.004+01:00

My tiny blue Asus eeePc has been sadly neglected lately, but I recently decided to start making better use of it, because my 17" Macbook Pro is rather bulky to keep carrying from the kitchen table, to my office, to bed.

However, the copy of Ubuntu NBR I'd installed before was a bit out of date, and using a bit too much disk space to update itself, and having a networking issue that my Linux skills aren't up to solving, so I thought I'd switch to XP.

First, I replaced the 512Mb memory with 1Gb, so as to be sure the machine wouldn't be sluggish.

Next, I copied a Windows XP CD to my Windows 7 laptop, and ran nLite over it. This impressive software takes the XP install media and alters it in many ways. In this case, I was stripping everything I don't need out. There's only a 4Gb SSD in the eeePC, so no room to leave the Hungarian keyboard settings file around "just in case".

nLite did an impressive job - even after adding in all the Asus drivers (another cool feature of nLite), the resulting XP installer was about half the regular size. I burnt this to a CD-R, popped it into a USB CD-ROM drive, went into the eeePC BIOS and told it to install an OS, and boot from the CD) and started it going.

After a couple of false starts (which turned out to be a bad USB CD-ROM drive!!) I was able to install XP. Very plain looking (I have all the eye candy either removed or turned off) but perfectly functional, fast, and with plenty of space left on the SSD hard drive for some software. The main use of this device will be Web Browsing, and I decided to install Chrome on it. Google are eyeing up the Netbook market for Chrome OS, so the Chrome browser is heavily optimised for these devices, and indeed it runs a treat. Very fast, and the maximised and full screen settings make good use of the tiny 800x480 screen on the EEEPC.

What else? Rocketdock and Launchy put a little bit of eye candy back, mostly to make it easier to launch applications with the Start menu hidden to save space. As usual, Evernote, Spotify, and DropBox clients give me access to (and local copies of) my data from the cloud. Picassa so I can upload photos when travelling using the built-in card reader.

A new thing I'm trying is a copy of AbiWord in case I want to write some blog posts etc. while offline. My local Starbucks doesn't have WiFi, darn it. I don't need a full office suite, and I remember I liked AbiWord back in the early days of dabbling in Linux, so I thought I'd give it a go. I might put VPN software and Office communicator on so I can make work calls from it in an emergency. And I suppose a couple of games might end up on there too.

On the whole, I'm pretty pleased so far with how this rebuild has turned out. Now to stress test it and see how useful I find it.

Upgrading to Snow Leopard Part 2

2009-09-19T09:02:00.002+01:00

Well, that was simple enough, although the Erase and Install option was a little obscure. (Boot rom the DVD, Utilities menu, start Disk Utility, Erase, then install as usual.)

I have Safari, Mail, Textedit, Evernote, Tweetdeck, and iPhoto working. (The other app I use a lot, calibre, is not updated for Snow Leopard quite yet, but I can live without it for a while.)

The rest I'll put back slowly as I need it - that way I make sure I don't have a lot of stuff I don't really use.

Moving to Snow Leopard Part 1 - Backup

2009-09-18T13:27:00.004+01:00

So, I got my shiny new Snow Leopard DVD last weekend, and now it's time to upgrade.
First Cardinal Virtue of the sysadmin being Paranoia, I begin with some backups.

Backup #1
I already have Time Machine backing me up to one half of my 512Gb External USB hard disk, so I make sure that is up to date.
Backup #2
I use the essential Carbon Copy Cloner to clone my Mac's Hard drive to the other half of my 512Gb USB disk. This has the advantage of being bootable, so in the event of any trouble I can just boot my Mac with the apple key held down and I'm back to Leopard with everything in place.
Backup #3
I use Carbon Copy Cloner to make a second clone of my Mac to a Disk Image saved on my other external USB hard disk, the mostly empty 1Tb I'm planning to use to store Media backups on.
Backup #4
I copy my User folder to the 1Tb disk as well. Since I plan to build a new clean Snow Leopard install, rather than upgrade in place, this will be where I go and get my data from to copy it back.
Backup #5
More a theoretical backup than an actual action, but all my really critical data (apart from media) has copies in the cloud, via Google, Evernote, and DropBox.

I'm pausing now to think if there's any way I can make a sixth backup. What can I say - I'm very virtuous.

First impressions of the iPhone 3G

2009-08-30T22:18:00.002+01:00

These were never going to be earth shattering, of course, since I already have a first-gen iPod Touch, so my new 3gs is basically that, with a phone, a microphone, a camera, a GPS, a compass, mobile internet, a fatter bum, a grease-resistant screen, and a faster processor.

Actually when I write it like that it sounds like a lot. Anyhoo, let's begin.

Very easy to set up. I charged it for 3 hours, plugged it into iTunes, answered a few questions, and it started syncing. I immediately stopped it so I could tweak what it was syncing (a while back my music library grew to the point where I have to use a series of interlocked playlists to decide what to sync to the iPod), then started again. 20Gb of data later, and half a dozen text messages from O2 later, it was ready.

Physical impressions: bigger, but this actually makes it more comfortable to hold. It still (just!) fits into an official apple iPod sock, which will be acting as a case until I can find one I like in the shops. I'm not yet decided if I want a slipcase or one with a belt clip. I miss the old Blackberry belt clip cases, but my last two only had a slipcase, and I wonder if I've gotten too used to that way of working.

The screen looks richer, and it does pick up grease less than the Touch did.

The weirdest thing about it, coming from a touch, is that it has a speaker. It keeps giving me unexpected audio feedback. For example, it makes a Wolverine-style "snickt" sound whenever I lock or unlock it.

The second weirdest thing, is the extra buttons for the volume control and ringer switch; followed closely by the headphone jack being at the top.

The headphone controls, and voice command, are cool and work well so far.

Also: the UK charger is impossibly small. I thought the international charger I had for the touch was small, but the iPhone is just a regular plug head with a USB socket in it.

All my apps run well, and the speed increase is noticeable, although I didn't really have any that were too slow on the Touch .

The camera seems to work well, based on a few test shots - I'll take some more and send them to my computer tomorrow and take a good look. I think the fact that I can use applications to process them after taking is going to be significant.

I like how it handles data. It was showing an E when I first turned it on, which is worrying as I should be in good range of a HSPDA/3G signal, but as soon as I configured my WiFi, it stopped that and routes all data thru the WiFi. It turns out that this actually saves battery, as WiFi data needs less juice than 3G data; if the device is going to be out of range of WiFi for a while it;s worth turning off, but otherwise I should have it connected to a LAN as much as possible.

Last thought: I think I'm going to need *another* dock. That will bring me to:

Charging Dock in the bedroom.

Charging Dock in the work office.

Charger + cable in my bag.

Sync cable attached to my Mac.

We'll see: the charger in my bag might do for work, but a dock is so much simpler.

My history with pocket computers

2009-08-30T17:58:00.002+01:00

I thought it might be an opportune moment, as my latest toy gets it’s first charge, to recount my history with that strange, now forgotten, genre of electronic device, the PDA.

The first PDA I spent any time with was a borrowed Palm III. A work colleague had one - having just came to us from 3COM, who owned Palm at the time - so I borrowed it for a week to see if I liked it. Alas for my wallet, I loved it, and pretty soon I had bought my own.

That must have been about 20 years ago... Strangely enough, it wasn't my first mobile device. While I was still at school, my incredibly cool parents had bough me a Casio fx-702p. It had 2K of RAM, a single line display, and ran BASIC programs. I've still got it in a drawer somewhere.

Over time I rapidly progressed thru a series of devices. The Psion 5mx was an astounding machine, still the best keyboard in a mobile device, but just too darn big - I needed something that would fit in a shirt pocket.

The best was probably the Palm m500, my last monochrome device until, not long ago, I bought a Sony eBook reader. When I read my first book on the Sony, I suddenly realized why I had stopped reading eBooks at the same time as I stopped using the m500 - color screens were never as pleasant on the eyes as they were with a non-backlit mono screen. Tempted as Amazon no doubt are to make a color Kindle, they should bear this fact in mind.

It was the Sony Ericsson P900 that made me realize the PDA was doomed to be replaced by the smartphone. The P900 had enormous flaws, but I could take (awful!) photos, and post them to flickr (slowly and expensively!) all with a single device. And it made phone calls too.

My last true PDA was a Dell Axim X50. Like every Windows Mobile, it made me nostalgic for the days when Windows Mobiles had crappy hardware, because now they have great hardware, you realize how truly crappy the software is.

And then it was an endless series of Blackberries for mobile data, and an endless series of iPods for media playback. As soon as the iPhone came out, I knew I would end up with one. My brief time with the P900 had made me realize that carrying two devices about was only worth doing if you couldn’t get one device that did everything you needed.

Following Stephen Fry’s advice (as all geeks should), I exerted all my will power and waited until the third iteration, and in a couple of hours it will be charged enough for me to turn it on for the first time.

Someone tried to make a Palm III emulator for iPhone a while back, but it never came to anything. It ran at 450% of normal speed, you see, so it wasn’t the same.

How Spotify has changed how I listen to music

2009-05-21T21:08:00.003+01:00

Not to long ago I found out about Spotify, the online music steaming service. It's ad-driven, or you can pay £10 a month to have it ad-free, and you can listen to what you want.

The thing is, that so far, I haven't been able to not find something on Spotify. I know they don't have everything, but I have never thought "Oooh, I should listen to that on Spotify" and not had it playing within 20 seconds.

To the delight of copyfighters everywhere, this source of endless free music has, of course, meant that I buy more music. Let me explain with an example:

Recently I heard a song on the radio I really liked. Stupid DJ didn't name it, but I remembered enough of the lyrics for Google to be able to find it. "It Happens" from "Love on the Inside" by Sugarland, if you care.

Of course, it's on Spotify, so I could spend a week listening to the whole album as much as I liked, on my Mac at home or my PC at work (roll on the iPhone version!).

I eventually decided that I like it a lot: a few clicks on iTunes (after checking if it was cheaper on Amazon, of course) and it was bought.

Evernote for Blackberry Review

2009-05-12T10:41:00.005+01:00

First off, if you're not familiar with Evernote, it's a software notebook, allowing you to keep all the little scraps of information you collect in one computerised (and hence searchable) place. Evernote stores your data in the cloud, so you can access it from any web browser, or by using client software on your PC or Mac. You can get a free account with discrete advertising, or pay a little every month to get more storage and no adverts. I got into Evernote after both the Microsoft solutions I'd been using to keep notes in failed me miserably. (OneNote destroying all my data was the last straw!) With a cloud based product, I have copies of my data not just in the cloud but also cached locally in the client software. You can also do neat things like sending an email to your notebook.
Evernote have had an iPhone client for some time now, and we Blackberry users have been eyeing it with longing.
Although using the Evernote web client on the Blackberry works well, one of the most interesting features in Evernote is that it can store pictures as notes, and will transcribe any text in them. You can upoload photos you've taken with the BB using the web client, but it requires quite a few steps. In the iPhone client, you start Evernote, press a button, and take a photo. Hence the longing from the Crackberry addicts.
So, how does the Blackberry client shape up? They've made some unexpected design choices, and it suffers from RIM's hideous process for installing software, but it does exactly what I need it to, and I'm really glad to have it.
When Evernote announced the BB version yesterday, they provided a link, but just a link to install RIM's new app store, the Blackberry App World. Since I already have App World, it took me a minute to figure out that I was going to have to search for it myself, especially since such a search failed to find it. A search on the messageboards found that some people could find it and others couldn't - new software seems to comes onto App World slowly. (Which is deeply wierd from a technical perspective. Maybe they push it to one server and it takes time to replicate to the others?)
After an overnight wait the software appeared in my instance of App World, and I hit the download button. Evernote downloaded, asked me a technical question about trusting the app. I ran the app, and it asked me if it could use the network. Then it said there was a newer version, and took me to Evernotes web site to downlaod it OTA. So I downloaded it again. It asked me an even more technical question about overwriting the old app. Once it was downloaded, I ran it again. It asked me if it could use the network. I said yes. Then it asked me again. Then again. Then, for variety, it asked me if it could use Location services. As I said, hideous.
I suspect that RIM, like almost everyone else, thinks that the iPhone sells so well because of the big screen, without realising the real reason: if the Apple App Store had a user experience like the Blackberry App World, Steve Jobs would have fired everyone involved, and indeed anyone else who passed his office that day.
Once the client is installed, though, it works well. Interestingly, it is not a full client like the Mac, PC, or even the iPhone version, but a sort of intelligent front-end to the web interface. Capturing a new note happens in the client, but reading an existing note takes you seamlessly to the web client. If you're blackberry is offline you can't read existing notes, but you can capture new ones, which will sync up to the cloud once you reconenct to the network. This might be a deal-breaker for some, although in my case I also have the iPhone client running on my iPod Touch, so if I'm offline but desperately need some info from my notebook, I have a cached copy.
Apart from that, it just works. It suffers a little from that common problem with Blackberry software, in that parts of the user interface are hidden until you press the menu button. I spent a while when creating my first note baffled because I couldn't see the button to say "I'm finished, save this note" until I remembered it was a Blackberry, pressed the Menu Key, and saw the Save option there.
As I mentioned above, my main reason for wanting the Blackberry client was to make it easy to create photo notes. This is certainly the case - taking and uploading a photo couldn't be easier.
I hadn't realised - because I run the iPhone version on my 1st generation Touch which doesn't have microphone support - that Evernote on phones supports Audio notes as well, which could be very useful. The BB client can even upload PDF or other documents, a feature present in the regular client. I'm not sure how useful that is in a mobile device though.
Overall, then, I'm very pleased. My various complaints above are minor inconveniences compared to how much more useful Evernote now is for me.
Evernote is at evernote.com

On America

2009-03-24T20:48:00.002Z

When I grew up in Britain, America seemed like an impossibly magical far-away place that you could only see on TV.

I suppose kids nowadays with cheap holidays in Florida don't feel the same, but to me, something as simple as a Dairy Queen is exotic and fascinating.

(While I'm sure that a British McDonalds Creme Egg McFlurry could - just! - hold it's own against an American Dairy Queen Reeses Peanut Butter Cup Blizzard, there's a glamour there still.

On my last trip to the US, my American colleagues were astounded at my reaction to a normal American School Bus.

My trip to London (see point 9 for why it looks wierd)

2009-03-02T11:55:00.004Z

http://twitpic.com/1rs68 - I'm forever passing Slough railway statio, but have never gotten off the train here.10:49 AM Mar 1st from TwitPic
Eurostar sheds look like giant greyhound traps. Wonder why they need so many? I count at least 21,and you'd expect both ends to be the same.11:18 AM Mar 1st from TwitterBerry
@sniffyjenkins I have beat your friend who reads a book while walking - a guy walking in front of me is watching a DVD on a portable player!11:25 AM Mar 1st from TwitterBerry
http://twitpic.com/1rsoo - I always take the bus in London, not the tube; the view is better. On a Sunday sometimes you get a bus to you ...11:38 AM Mar 1st from TwitPic
& more questions. Why the queue outside the Applestore? How can phone shops in Oxford Circus survive? Why is only 1 of those 6 girls a goth?about 24 hours ago from TwitterBerry
Everytime @zoecello posts a tweet, I happen to be listening to her music. Sweeping my iPod for sophistcated Soviet listening devices.about 24 hours ago from TwitterBerry
In the offices at the back of the Adelphi, everyone has a little cardboard sign on their PC monitor with their name. Baffling.about 24 hours ago from TwitterBerry
http://twitpic.com/1rtp6 - When I win the lottery, I have the flat I'll buy picked out, and the Stamford Arms will then be my local.about 23 hours ago from TwitPic
Apologies to any followers alarmed by my sudden locquacity. I'm using Twitter to write a blog post about my day, 140 characters at a time.about 23 hours ago from TwitterBerry
Sitting under the stairs in the Stamford Arms (a favorite spot) wishing the sausages the bloke next to me is eating didn't smell that good.about 23 hours ago from TwitterBerry
Just had a startling idea about self portraiture, a way to use a mirror without having the camera in the photo. Testing in the pub loo, erk.about 23 hours ago from TwitterBerry
http://twitpic.com/1ruix - Since I saw that documentary about how illegal hotdog vendors pee in an old oil bottle, it's not the same.about 22 hours ago from TwitPic
Two men just walked past, each carrying an exactly to scale Morph. Nothing but questions and mysteries today. Next up: where to (for lunch)?about 22 hours ago from TwitterBerry
More questions: a helicopter flys past, towing a giant advertising kite. How is that a) legal and b) not fatal? Would twitpic but it'd suck.about 22 hours ago from TwitterBerry
@knellr (Who had just tweeted me that the Morphs were for a Tony Hart Memorial Flash Mob at the Tate modern) How glorious! The culture secretary could easily make up for recent faux pas by ordering a "Tony Hart Room" at the National Gallery.about 21 hours ago from TwitterBerry
Tired, so heading home in time to miss dinner. One last question occurs: why doesn't Paddington Station have more chairs?about 19 hours ago from TwitterBerry

Happy hunting in Amerind, Kickaha.

2009-02-25T22:07:00.003Z

You know you have those idle daydreams about which character you'd play if you found a billion dollars and used it to made a movie of your favorite book? Well, in World of Tiers I'd play Wolff, because even in my daydreams I'm not cool enough to play Paul Janus Finnegan.

To write one series of books that moves and inspires a grumpy old bugger like me is something.

He wrote at least half a dozen.

Why the Internet is awesome, part 147

2009-02-22T14:38:00.003Z

So, for ages now, I've loved an astounding version of "Puttin' on the Ritz", performed by Fred Astaire and a terrific Jazz band, more modern . (I now know it's from the 1952 sessions he did with Oscar Peterson and the best contract musicians of Verve.) Wanted to a) buy it and b) buy more of the same, but how to work out what album it is on?
Then in the car today, "Top Hat and Tails", obviously from the same sessions, was on, and as I arrived at work I was very cross. How to solve this problem?
Then a thought. I've recently signed up for the UK version of Spotify. It's a service that let's you stream music: very good selection, ad supported unless you subscribe. My iPod goes everywhere I do, so I don't have much use for it; I mainly use it when I'm considering buying an album - I just pop it onto Spotify and I can have a good listen, decide if I want it or not.
What if I listen to every version of "Puttin' on the Ritz" on Spotify until I find the one I want?
And low and behold. Fred Astaire's Finest hour, a highlight of the 18 best tracks from the session: which is enough information to give me the session information, which is enough information to find The Astaire Story, which is the whole 38 tracks.
Now I just need to figure out which one I want to buy!
I suppose that if I'd thought of this method sooner, I could have probably done something similar to this with an iTunes search. But the Internet is still awesome.

How I'm Getting Things Done - Feb 09 version

2009-02-20T19:05:00.002Z

I keep trying to use GTD in my daily life, but I do find it hard - perhaps because I'm too overloaded, although more likely I'm just not doing it right. But here's my current implementation. It's half electronic, half paper - every time I try using software to keep my lists I eventually give up and get back to index cards.
Capture
I have a cheap Buxton index card holder (like a Levenger pocket briefcase, only 10% of the price!) that carries blue index cards (blue cards=capture), and a Pilot G-2 (violet ink, of course!) that goes in my pocket or bag. I got the card holder in a supermarket in New Jersey - I've never seen a UK stationary supplier stock anything like it. A pity, since I'd really like to get something bigger that held index cards in the same way, but also had a pen loop and credit card slots so I could use it as a wallet. Then I'd be sure to always have it with me. Levenger do one, of course, but not cheap, especially when you factor in shipping.
A stack of blue cards and pens sits on my desk for customer walk-ins, phone calls, or random ideas.
I also have a Blackberry Bold that I can use for capture if I need to capture a photo or if I run out of cards, by emailing myself.
Inboxes
I have three. A physical tray on my desk, my work inbox, and all the items in my work ticketing system that are in "assigned" state.
There are some other places that I check occasionally and move what I find there into the physical tray.
Lists
I have an standard plastic index card box with section dividers for Next Actions, Projects, waiting on/agenda, and someday/maybe. I also have a smaller box for travelling.
I use color coded cards here too. Red is next actions; yellow is projects and someday maybe (things fluidly move between the two categories) and green is waiting on/agenda. The yellow cards get ticket numbers written on them when they represent a ticket in "working on" state. The green cards get the name of the person or meeting. If I have multiple items against a person they share a card so it's easier to cover everything, but red and yellow cards get one idea per card.
You'll notice I don't use contexts - turns out all my work is in the same context, so really it's just one big context (@working, I suppose).
I hit upon a neat way to associate a next action with the project it's part of - I use a paperclip to pin the yellow behind the red. Sometimes multiple yellows, as often I need to do one action to move forward on several projects. Sometimes I clip the yellow behind a green because the project is stalled waiting on someone. On the occasions where I have multiple actions on a project, I just pin all the reds in front of the yellow.
Calendar
I use Outlook's calendar, synced to my blackberry
Other stuff
Project support materials - if there's paper (rare), it goes in a manilla file in a holder on my desk. If it's electronic, it goes on my desktop (I use stardock's fences to group by project - great little bit of software) Old material goes in a file drawer, or in a zip file on the server.
Reference material is kept in evernote, synced to the cloud and hence my blackberry (roll on the proper evernote client for blackberry, but the web client is adequate)
My "to read" pile goes on the holder for the manilla files, since it's always empty.
I have a stack of out of date plain pads I use for scratch paper. Anything I need to keep goes into the inbox
Lastly, I keep two plastic folders; the a4 one is used for that old David Allen trick of dealing with interruptions by sweeping everything on your desk into a folder, and the a5 one is used to collect receipts etc. when travelling.

I thought these were just in cartoons

2009-01-16T14:13:00.000Z

An actual one ton weight, used to counterbalance the lock gates at St Catherine's dock.

What's worse than overcharging?

2009-01-11T14:17:00.002Z

Not letting me buy it either.

After the iTunes Music Store DRM changes my copy of iTunes popped up and said "do you want to upgrade this stuff you already bought to iTunes plus". I looked at what it was listing, figured that it was pretty much all stuff I really liked and so pulled the trigger on the upgrade. All very seamless. I subsequently learned that if I'd only wanted to upgrade some of it I'd be totally out of luck - it's an all or nothing deal.

But then I noticed that it didn't include one album I've bought not on iTunes but on my iPod Touch. They've got it in iTunes Plus format, in fact it's on special offer for £3.95 at the moment. But there doesn't seem to be a way to upgrade it.

Unless I buy it again. But not only is that a rip-off, it's on the Amazon MP3 store for £3. Including four bonus tracks.

So that's the obvious way to upgrade. But I resent buying stuff twice. Sigh, my own stupid fault. I know how incredibly bad DRM is, but bought it anyway.

By the way, now the Amazon MP3 store is working in the UK, I gotta say wow. It's cheap, it is only very slightly less easy to use than iTunes, no DRM. The only reason iTunes is selling anything is that only the geeks know about Amazon MP3.

Except iTunes does have slightly more stuff, so I just bought something off there that I've been searching for in vain for years. Sigh again. But this one at lease I made sure was DRM-free before I started.

But... It's freezing!

2008-12-10T12:54:00.000Z

It's so cold it hurts my fingers to type this post outside, but leaving the house this morning there was a bumble bee nonchalantly buzzing in the garden.

Mind you, my Canadian boss reports that this morning he can't see out of his office windows because they are covered in sheets of ice.

Another rant!

2008-12-05T12:31:00.002Z

I'm not an ogre; design is hard. But when people aren;t even trying... I have a shiny new wireless telephone headset, a Jabra GN9350. Lovely sound quality, and it's super cool that I can use it with my landline and with my VoIP software. As you can see here, the charging stand has two buttons on either side. Press the left to use VoIP, press the right to use POTS. Easy.

Each button has a blue LED under it that lights up to show which mode the headset is in. This is useful to know. One of the phones rings, you glance at the stand to see if you have to change mode, and away you go. Except for one thing. You can only see the LED if you're at an angle of less than about 65 degrees to it. And if you put it flat on a desk, and then sit at it, you're at an angle of 70 degrees.

30 seconds of being used by someone over 5'8" is all it takes to spot this flaw. Sigh.

I may have to review my "one strike and your out" rule for coffee shops.

2008-11-29T11:46:00.001Z

Sorry, bit of a rant today.
I'm not an ogre, I don't mind if a coffee shop makes a mistake or has a bad day. It's just when they are stupid.
Walking into work this morning I went past the new Costa which has opened on the route - taking over the whole first floor of the local cinema. Their first day, so you expect it might be a little crowded but I thought I'd give them a try.
They weren't crowded in front of the counter, which was good. Almost as many staff as customers, in fact. However, one difference: while most of the customers had probably been in a coffee shop before, none of the staff had.
They didn't have Cinnamon syrup, they took 10 minutes to make my coffee, and they did it with whole, not skim milk, and by then I was already late, so I got a refund.
Now I know what you're thinking, first day opening, give em a break. And I would, except that the above was not down to first day, it was down to them being *idiots*.
Take the syrup. Not only did they not have any, none of the staff KNEW they had any. Which tells us that either they didn't do a stock take before the first day of opening, or possibly worse, that they did so but didn't tell the team that they were out of Cinnamon.
It took them so long becuase they were very disorganized - it didn't occur to them, for example, that if you have a bad backlog then you need to put the barista in front of the machine and have everyone else keep the hell out of his way. No-one taking charge, although the "store manager" and the "barista" and someone who looked like they were from head office were there.
As the last straw, none of those three people were authorized to open the till for my refund, so I had to wait another 5 minutes for them to get the cinema manager down. I mean, if you've ever opened a new store before, you'd realise that things are going to go wrong and you probably need someone with the codes for the till there!
I mean, obviously, they've just using retrained cinema staff to save money, but for gods sake, don't Costa have the brains to send an experienced Store manager in for the first day to help out? How much would that cost, a couple of hundered quid?
And if they're so dumb they never had anyone write a page of A4 with "things to watch out for on the first day you open" then you gotta wonder how good their procedures for not confusing the rat poison with the icing sugar are.
So, that's Costsa out, Starbucks out (went there every day for a month, they screwed my order up, and it never even occured to anyone ot apologse once. If they hate their regulars that much why should I go back?) and coffee Republic out (I cannot concieve how you can accidentally serve a cup of luke-warm coffee in a coffee shop).
I'm not sure there's anywhere left...

Back to the grind

2008-11-26T09:38:00.001Z

Back at work, and pretty swamped. Not even really had time to get some photos uploaded yet. (but don't get me started on the latest woes regarding my broken camera)
Still, one bit of good news: while I still can't get TubeTV fixed (I used it use all the time to get YouTube videos onto my iPod but for a month now it has refused to convert the downloaded FLV files) the new version of Handbrake will convert those FLVs to M4V effortlessly. It's a kludge, but it works.

Last day in Whitby

2008-11-20T20:52:00.001Z

Had a lazy lie-in this morning, felt a little guilty wasting the daylight, but made up with it by taking a long walk round the back of town. There's an ugly road bridge that let's heavy traffic cross the Esk, that has fascinated me - it's very high. Got some nice pictures of the whole town.
By which point I was starving, so a hearty lunch of fish - you're meant to eat the local kippers with bread and jam (the sweet clears the palate of the smokiness). Yum.
A climb up to the abbey helped burn off the jam. I don't like heights, but perversely this makes them fascinating to me. Got a photo of my terror that should look good.
Then home and a coffee in front of the telly. Again, in a sense that's a waste of the day, but I'm learning how to take a holiday, and veging out is an important part.
After the telly got boring, took a walk down to listen to the sea in the dark. I think that's been my favorite - walking along the pier with the waves smashing against it below me. There are fishermen who go out onto a second pier that extends beyond the harbor, with dry suits and headlamps.
And of course I find a nice pub on the last night. Oh well. I need a break from the boozing after this holiday to loose some weight before I come back, so it's good that my final pint is a good one.
I have an hour now before the supermerkets close, so I'll grab something for supper, head back to the flat and pack my bags.

Too tired to think of a snappy title.

2008-11-19T15:21:00.000Z

Looong walk today, west along Whitby sands. Beautiful but tiring. Had a “Graham” moment – scrambled up a brambly hill to see what was on top of it, found a golf course so tried to head back the way I came, and fell down the hill. Twice.
Second time I stepped into an unseen rabbit hole and two thoughts were clear in my mind: “My hat just came off” and “I should probably try and fall in such a way that I don't break my leg”.
I'm battered but unharmed and back home now with a medicinal Gin and Tonic. I think I'll sit vert quiet and still for a while until my body forgives me for this unusually violent exercise, then gingerly stroll into town for Fish and Chips. I deserve it today!

I have a burning question

2008-11-19T11:42:00.001Z

I was a bit weary last night after all that walking, so instead of going to the pub I popped my frozen dinner in the microwave, opened a half bottle of wine, rummaged thru the collection of CDs provided with the flat (the sort that come free with newspapers) and had a bath.
That all sounds a bit girly, doesn't it? But I put extra pepper sauce on the frozen dinner! Manly! And I was reading Alan Clark's diary, not some glossy magazine! Extra manly!
Curious discovery – the free CDs that come with newspapers fill out the space after the advertised tracks with strange stuff I've never heard of. Do new bands pay them to put stuff on the Cd in the hope of inspiring record sales? But it's all got nothing to do with the headlining band – different styles completely. Wish my EEE had a CD-ROM drive so I could rip them to my iPod.
Unsure what to do today. I have on my list of things to possibly do a long walk over the cliffs to the next bay, but it looks very long on the crude maps I have, and I don't have a proper map. I also planned a trip to Scarborough but I like Whitby so much I'd sooner sit here and look at the sea from the cliff tops. Maybe that's the best thing to do.
Looked at my photos from yesterday. A few good ones. A few surprises. Quite a few that I'd love to try HDR on. I wonder how you do that? Lock the camera down with a tripod and snap at a range of exposures, I guess, then feed them into the Mac. I wonder how locked down it has to be? I do actually have a little tripod with me – that might be enough. But you have to press quite a few buttons to change the Exposure compensation on the Fuji... If I can find somewhere with free wifi tomorrow I'll take the Eee out for a pint/coffee and google it.
Remind me again how I was alive before you could “just google it”?
[Next Day]
Went for a walk to the chemists this morning (allergy medicine – I'm sneezing for about an hour after I get up!) and noticed a lovely looking path heading North up the coast (not South, which is where the walk I mentioned yesterday went) so back home to get my walking shoes, a water bottle, and an emergency mars bar and then I'm off. Not used my day sack once, because it turns out I'm too unfit to get far enough to need it. I'm enjoying my holiday but it's bringing home how hopelessly out of shape I am.
Lastly, that question. Why do so many shops here sell ukuleles?