Tag Soup

Alley-find renovation

2011-06-21T23:09:00.002+01:00

Vancouver, like most North American cities has a block layout with back alleys for parking, refuse disposal, telegraph poles and other services. Also like many North American cities there's a culture of leaving things you don't want, but which someone else might next to the bins in these alleys for others to pick up. This appeals to my senses of environmental responsibility and general cheapness, so I often walk the alleys instead of the streets in case anything good's been left out.

A few months back (during winter, naturally) I found a desk fan. It was next to the bin rather than in it, which is the signal that it was still working. It also satisfied my personal rule of only picking things up that aren't overly bedbug friendly, or at least are easy to inspect for the little critters.

It worked of course, but it was pig-ugly, so I set about it with a can of Plastikote (or similar) and lo: Quite a nice little freebie for my desk.

Not sure what the overriding point is for this post, either 'reuse is better than recycle' or 'carefully spraying things a cool colour is an easy way to renovate them'. Take your pick.

And speaking of pics, here's the before, during and after shots:

DIY Double Glazing

2011-03-04T03:32:00.005Z

When I moved into my new place in the summer its only downside was it faced quite a busy road, and had old, ill-fitting, single-glazed windows.

After a couple of nights sub-optimal sleep I decided to have a go at fitting some secondary glazing, and, not wishing to spend proper money on a rental house I came up with quite a pleasing solution: $100 worth of plastic (polycarbonate to be precise, specially designed crystal clear for windows) sheeting and draft excluding tape from the local DIY store.

The photo tells the rest of the story, but one nice thing: Because the window frames have multiple bevels, I didn't need to cut the sheets to size down the sides, I just chose something roughly right, knowing one of the bevels would do to buttress against. A relief since cutting this stuff smoothly is almost impossible.

I've tested noise with and without, and compared to the proper double glazing in the sitting room and it seems about as effective - in so much as you can tell with a free iPhone decibel meter anyway. :-)

HDD upgrade the MacGyver way

2011-01-10T21:03:00.002Z

I have a 5 year old laptop, with a 100gb hard disk. It has no DVD drive so installing the OS on a new disk is tricky, and even if it had one that's still an immensely boring task that can be avoided with some sticky velcro and a £50 USB-powered external disk, like so:

That is all.

Quick tip: Reusing old candles

2010-12-19T01:49:00.004Z

I discovered the other day that candlewax microwaves well. This is probably obvious, but compared to putting glasses of wax into pans of boiling water this does make reusing old candles much easier.

I scooped up a few old candle leftovers, broke them up into a glass, nuked it for a minute or so and dropped in my replacement wick (held up with a paperclip, tied down to a 1" nail):

One error I sometimes make: Always dip the whole wick in wax for easier/stronger starting off with the new candle.

Eco-scrooge strikes again!

Getting a human on an automated line

2010-11-24T00:05:00.002Z

Very few things are as annoying as wading through a number of automated menus looking for the right part of a megaglobalcorp to speak to - especially if you have an unusual request to make and know it's going to require actually speaking to someone to sort it out.

This is a subject many people have written about before, but I've had a couple of experiences recently that made me realise a compilation of known techniques might be useful. So, here they are:

In the UK there websites that list known landline numbers to companies. The biggest is Say no to 0870 and, in addition to avoiding 08 number fees this should get you through to a human.
I recently got so annoyed on one of these lines I shouted "get me a f&*^ing human" out of sheer frustration. I was then immediately connected to an operator. It turns out that swearing and stress level monitors are common, so as long as you're not in an open plan office, this is worth a try.
Finally entering your initial login / account number, date of birth information incorectly can often shortcut you to an operator. This worked most pleasingly on VanCity's shockingly poor Reloadable visa card customer services line, where I would otherwise have been charged one dollar for connection. Win-win.

Good gizmo: PCMCIA USB hub

2010-11-08T21:22:00.003Z

I buy gizmos. I also buy gadgets. I've been known to purchase a widget. In short when I see some little impediment to the smooth running of some part of my life I often turn to technology, usually via eBay.

Sometimes these purchases are whack, but sometimes they're great, and in a spirit of positivity it's the latter I've decided to start sharing on this blog, so welcome to the first in an occasional series about good gizmos.

Today's gizmo

I've mentioned before how USB rules the school but sadly my old Toshiba tablet only has a couple of ports, leaving me plugging and unplugging stuff all the time, and particularly stuffed when using my 2 port USB powered DVD player (itself a good gizmo).

I guess from the self-explanatory title you can see where this is going: After a short hunt on ebay it's now filled with a flush, driverless 2 USB port card, for less than £10 all in.

Problem solved.

Give me some credit

2010-10-11T22:05:00.004+01:00

One new challenge that's presented itself during my emigration has been the loss of my UK credit rating - it counts for nothing in Canada apparently. Since they don't take cash on the net, this was a pain.

Luckily there are a few things you can do to give your credit rating a kick start when arriving in a new land.

Get a bank account (well, duh). Initially you may not easily get a checking account, but a savings account is available to anyone with a buck and ID.
Get a prepaid Visa card. Not only does this get you spending on the net straight away, but if you get a card with a reloadable balance, and therefore an ongoing relationship with a financial institution, it sometimes counts positively towards your credit rating.
Before emigrating, get an American Express account in your native land. Annoyingly rarely accepted though they are, Amex are the one credit company I know that take your overseas credit rating into account when deciding whether to grant you a card in your new home. Aside from some niggles with ID I was instantly approved for a Canadian card.
Lastly, once you've got these accounts, make sure you run all your spending through them. Use the cards whenever possible, and pay your bills on time. After two or three months you should have no problems at all getting a proper Visa and a checking account.

All your leads are belong to bus

2010-07-30T10:15:00.003+01:00

I like to travel light. On recent(ish) trips to Thailand, Japan and Egypt I've only taken carry-on luggage. I also don't like clutter in my flat. Combine these two things and you come to one, inescapably obvious conclusion:

Power cables suck.

Thus over the last few years I've ensured all my new gizmos are rechargeable via USB which, combined with a collection of small USB to wall plug / car cigarette lighter adaptors, means minimum cables in my luggage and my flat.

For example (bottom of pic), here's the cabling required to charge my X-Mini II travel speaker (mini-USB) on UK trips (noting the plug adaptor can be used for all my other devices too):

A key discovery in achieving this was that even if the device, like my camera, won't natively charge over USB, there are always third party USB battery chargers available (I recommend Ebay) for very little money.

Alternatively, if you have your laptop with you, you can charge everything through that (some laptops will even leave a USB port live while sleeping for this exact purpose). Admittedly you'll have to take the laptop lead with you, but you can always buy a local figure of 8 or kettle lead if you want to avoid taking the adaptor for that (again Ebay is your friend - I got a US/Canada one for $3CA, delivered).

If you're travelling to more than one country you'll need a multi-adaptor, but there are some, like the green FujiFilm one pictured above, that cover every continent, so even that isn't to bad.

The beginning of the end for scenes like this?

Here's hoping.

Free online backup

2010-07-29T18:03:00.009+01:00

People often ask me... well, ok, actually: Someone recently asked me how I back up my data on my PC laptop*, and when I told them, they said "wow that's amazing! You should do a blog post on that!".

Well, ok, they didn't do that either, but here's one anyway.

Executive summary

I keep my latest stuff (photos just off my camera, docs I've just written) inside a folder synced with the online backup service Dropbox (that gives you a couple of gigs storage for free). I leave the rest of my data outside the backed up folder.

Every six months (depending on how much new stuff I create) I backup all my data to an external HDD and move the recent stuff out of the Dropbox folder to its more permanent location - freeing up space for another six months worth of new stuff.

The detail

First things first, I only back up my data, not my whole system. My install of Windows XP is about 4 years old now, and while it works fine, if my HDD died I'd think of it as an opportunity to clense the remnants of all those peripheral applications that have come and gone over the years. If the whole thing explodes, or some scumbag nicks it, the question of full-system backup becomes moot anyway.

For online backup I use Dropbox, which simply syncs a specified folder on your HDD with their servers. Since I don't work for the CIA this is fine. Dropbox also have a nice web interface and an iPhone app for getting at your files when away from your machine.

Unfortunately Dropbox use the same "absurd or free" pricing model as (the otherwise awesome) Spotify, thus I only have the 2GB they provide free to play with, which is no help considering I have 20GB of photos and 50GB of music. There are other online backup services of course, but they too only offer a little free space.

Thinking about this though, I realised that since I have a couple of external HDDs that I take manual copies of everything on to every six months or so, all I really need to back up is whatever has changed recently.

Thus I was able to rearrange my docs as follows:

/My Dropbox
-\_INBOX
-\Docs
-\Music Metadata
-\New Music
-\New Photos
-\Web Pages
\Music
\Photo Archive
\Web Pages Archive

Inside my Dropbox

"_INBOX" is my catch-all folder for downloads and anything I'm looking at right now that I might not keep.
"Docs" contains all my Office-type docs, and since the folder's so small they're all kept in there. Similarly "Web Pages" has a copy of everything I have online now.
"Music Metadata" is where I occasionally copy my iTunes XML file to. As I've mentioned here before I'm pretty obsessive about my music metadata, so I don't want to lose it. I can't make iTunes keep it there thanks to Apple's general inability to let you specify data locations (see also iPhone photo caches).
"New Music", "New Photos" - Music and photos I've added recently.

Outside my Dropbox

Contains everything that hasn't changed since I last took an external HDD backup: My older photos, my music library, websites that aren't live any more etc.

As with anything i post on this blog, this solution won't suit everyone, but for me it means I have everything backed up, instantly, for minimal effort and with zero cost. It'll do until this cloud computing thing takes off anyway.

(* I think it's fair to say if I had a Mac I'd just buy a Time Machine, because they're awesome and seamless. However I don't.)

Cycling with golf clubs

2010-06-23T02:54:00.005+01:00

Ever wondered about a good way to attach a couple of golf clubs to a bike when off to pitch & putt? No? Well, it's my blog, so tough. Get reading.

Having found strapping them to my back a bit awkward, and wanting better weight distribution, I dropped into a 'Loonie' (dollar) store and got some self-adhesive velcro.

Stick a couple of 25cm lengths back to back, and wrap round frame and clubs so it sticks to the back of itself (click pics to enlarge):

Note the inner wrap of velcro attached to the frame to stop the whole assembly sliding back and forth:

This only does 2 clubs of course, or maybe 4 at a push, but that's fine for the driving range or the pitch & putt - and I'll leave the strips in my bike toolkit too, because I bet they come in handy for other things at some point.

Pack it in

2010-05-20T23:55:00.008+01:00

About a month ago I had to spend £30 replacing the lock on the boat after I forgot the key and we had to kick the door open. That was quite annoying. Even more annoying when I have a simple checklist I (almost) always use when packing to ensure I don't forget common items.

Anyway, since it's evolved over several years of travelling, I thought you might be interested to see it in case it inspires you to make or amend your own.

Note it's just a single list suitable for long holidays, Glastonbury or an overnight stay (with headings so I can skip sections that aren't relevant any given trip) - because even I can't be bothered maintaining lots of separate lists with chunks of repetition. It's also not exhaustive, instead focussing on the slightly unusual stuff that I often forget.

Paperwork

Passport
Money & tickets (or reference #)
(International) driving licence & proof of address
Travel insurance docs
Guide book(s)
Reading book(s)

Gadgets

Phone charger
Camera (+ charger)
Laptop (+ charger)
Mini speakers (+ charger)
International socket adaptor

Clothes

T shirts / shirts, trousers and underwear
Sandals & shorts
Waterproof top & cap
Long kohns
Swimming trunks
Hiking boots and socks

Overnight

Washkit: lenses, specs, deo, tbrush, towel, wet wipes
Sleeping bag, inner, thermorest, mini pillow
Tent
Ear plugs and eye mask
Travel wash

Meds

Plasters (inc. blister plasters)
Rehydration sachets
Paracetomol
Antiseptic wipes
Sudafed

Misc

Booze
Cards and travel games
Mini kite
Silver wig
Folding chair & stool

Keys

Boat
Wales
Parent's place

You see? Keys even have their own section... £30! Dammit!

Revealed: Who's sold my email address to spammers

2010-02-17T22:22:00.005Z

Some time ago I posted about how I use customised email addresses when signing up for services so I can track who sells on my address to spamming third parties.

Well I've just had a rummage through my spam folder, and thought it would be fun to tell everyone which ~~charlatans~~ companies have done exactly that:

emusic.com
ticketweb.co.uk
aquasolo.fr

I also get lots to my ebay.com, ebay.co.uk and paypal.co.uk addresses, but they probably got out to an unscrupulous seller while I was paying for stuff, or messaging back and forth - still worth knowing though.

Oh, and note that while I may well have failed to tick a 'don't sell my info box' somewhere along the line, the point is the resulting mail is the nasty 'diet casino enlarging meds' style pure spam - not responsible related companies.

Switching off the idiot box

2009-11-01T11:20:00.001Z

I think I watch too much tv.

I know it's a common complaint, and there's a lot of good programming out there that I shouldn't feel is wasted time. Nonetheless, I do somehow end up watching too many things that I can barely even remember afterwards. I'm looking at you Property Ladder.

So, I've worked up a short checklist of avoidance tactics, that (mostly) work for me:

Go out. Any excuse: For a walk, shopping, take some photos, read a book in the park. It doesn't matter. Leaving the flat will always raise my mood.
Focus. Don't surf the net while watching telly. This is a particular problem for me: I focus quite intently on one thing, flipping between stimuli - catching all of neither, and never quite relaxing and immersing myself in one. Put the laptop out of reach, or turn the telly off.
If it's late enough, go to bed - get more sleep and be in a fitter, happier and more productive mood the next day. If I'm not tired, 30 mins with a book does the trick.
Only watch programmes off the PVR, turning the decision to watch into a two-step one. This doesn't wholly work for me, as I still, after all this time, occasionally record crap. I'm still looking at you, Property Ladder.

Quickie: iPhone maps without a data connection

2009-10-19T22:24:00.002+01:00

Just occasionally I know I'm heading off somewhere I could do with Google maps for, but where data is either hugely expensive (overseas), or not available (North Wales, planes, down a well).

Luckily you can take screenshots with the iPhone, so an easy solution for cheapskates like me is to take a bunch of screenshots of the relevant map screens in before you leave the free data area.

Works for web pages too if you can't be bothered with the iPhone's fiddly cut 'n paste.

Home drop box

2009-08-29T12:46:00.002+01:00

Here's a quick post that will no doubt further amuse those of my friends who take the mickey about my l33t OCD oranised-ness.

Right by the door to my room I've got a little three-storey office in-tray (in no way stolen from my office many years ago) which I use it as my 'drop box' when arriving in or departing from the flat. The three layers are used like so:

Top layer: Stuff I take in and out every time; Wallet, keys, coins, camera, glasses, headphones, phone etc.
Middle layer: Stuff I only take out occasionally; Boat key, library card, my Moo cards etc.
Bottom layer: 'One offs' waiting to be taken somewhere else; E-tickets, presents for others, leftover Euros etc.

All part of the place for everything and everything in its place principle.

Let the mickey-taking commence...

Rounds of three

2009-06-26T21:15:00.005+01:00

This is a post I've been meaning to make for ages. It involves boozing, and amateur systems analysis, which anyone who knows me knows are two of my favourite things.

In the UK, among other countries, the culture when buying drinks is to buy a round for everyone in the group who wants a drink. Simple, but not without its drawbacks for larger groups: Rounds vary wildy in size, sometimes making people reluctant to step up to the plate, often you have to order too much to carry, and worst of all, it rewards fast drinking, because quick drinkers get to join more rounds.

So, what to do? Enter rounds of three, and it's so simple, even a rabid drunk can manage it. In one sentence:

Buy rounds for whoever wants a drink at the given time exactly as usual, except limit the round to three drinks.

This means you can carry them, noone gets stung for a big round, and people drink at their own pace - safe in the knowledge they won't get left behind.

Now I admit the truth is it's hard to persuade a group to alter learnt behaviour - however the times I've tried it with friends it's worked nicely, and given a nice rest evening to the livers of those who wanted one...

Automagic status updates

2009-06-01T21:24:00.008+01:00

I use lots of apps that allow me to put little status updates in them – Facebook, Twitter, IM clients and even Dinqi, my own lifetracking app. I like this idea of letting people know what I'm up to, and starting conversations with them, however I don't want to spend my life updating my status on myriad different applications. What to do?

Enter RSS, Twitterfeed and Ping.fm.

The diagram below shows how I post to a few primary sources and use a few apps to spread the love, as well as how I get notified when someone replies:

A few notes:

If I want to post random stuff in directly I start at Ping
I still visit Twitter and Facebook when I have a quiet moment and want to browse what folk are chatting about.
Work and play aren't absolute – if it's not a secret then the Play route is fine for both.
By MSN I mean MSN Messenger - there just wasn't room in the diagram.
This isn't exactly how I have it now – Twitterfeed has only recently started supporting Ping and I haven't bothered to rejig stuff since, but I will.
This is just how I do it. It probably won't suit you exactly as is, but is hopefully interesting anyway.

Making decisions in a small group

2008-12-06T09:13:00.007Z

When faced with a quiet evening with my flatmate we may well decide to watch a film. Cue: "What do you fancy?" and an hour of scanning Tiscali timidly pointing out stuff we think the other person might be okay with - All the while both secretly wanting to watch 'Hostel' or some other such crap, but presuming the other wouldn't want to see that in a million years.

Scene set.

The way we've found round this, which also works in other situations and with bigger groups, is one person chooses a shortlist, which the other then picks from.

If there's two of you, have a shortlist of 3 or 4. If there's three of you, the first picks 5, the second narrows it down to 3 and the last person chooses.

The key is that if you're picking several films you don't have to worry so much about what the other person wants - as long as you have a little variety in your shortlist (5 mexican restaurants is not a cool list) there's bound to be something they fancy on it.

Failing that there's a neat little iPhone app called iChoose - but you'll still need that shortlist...

Places to attach an iPod shuffle

2008-10-01T19:38:00.002+01:00

If you buy decent headphones they should come with a break half way down the cable. This means if you have a tiny mp3 player, and you can attach it within 50 cm of your ears, you can get away with half the cabling.

Here's a few places I've clipped my shuffle in order to manage this:

On a necklace under a T-shirt
Inside a rolled-up sleeve
In a top or inner pocket
On my collar (NB: This made me look like an idiot, but that was fine as I was cycling)
On the headphones themselves, if you have big over-ear ones (NB: This also makes me look like an idiot - irrespective of circumstance, but it really works.)

Quickie: Folding paper

2008-10-01T19:34:00.003+01:00

Tiny tip: When folding up an A4 printout or similar that you'll want to refer to later, fold it backwards first, so the front faces outward.

That way when you come back to it you won't have to open it to see what it is.

A bluffer's guide to Spanish

2008-07-20T21:05:00.003+01:00

Hola! I went to Spain at the start of this year and, knowing no Spanish, I bought a phrease book and a dictionary to get me communicating.

However, I found that whole phrases are hard to remember and difficult to adjust to exact situations if you don't understand a word of them, and a dictionary is very time consuming to use. What I wanted was a short list of the absolute minimum vocab you need to get by, arranged so you can construct your own rudimentary sentences. Grammar, gender and spelling not required.

I couldn't find anything like that on the interwebs either so I've written my own, the absolute bare minimun guide to Spanish for travelling in Spain.

Numbers

0 - cero, uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco, seis, sieste, ocho, nueve, 10 - diez

Vocab

yes - si
no - no
hello - hola
goodbye - adios
please - por favor
thankyou - gracias
room - habitacion
train - tren
bus - autobu/s
plane - avio/n
today - hoy
tomorrow - man~ana
english - inglese

Phrases

(I don't) understand - (no) comprendo
my name's - me llamo
How much? - quanto?
What time? - a que hora?
where is? - donde es?
I'm sorry - lo siento

Constructors

for - para
on/in - en
that - aquel
this - este
what? - que?
when? - cuando?

Pronunciation

c - s (gracias = grasias)
r - rll (tren = trllen)
u/ - oo (autobu/s = autoboose)
ho - o (hola = ola)
ll - y (me llamo = me yamo)

Examples of use

Where's the train station - donde es tren, por favor?
Table for two at a restaurant - para dos?
How much is this rabbit pelt? - cuanto es este (along with pointing)
The bill please - use the international "bill please" mime

There. Now that's bound to have some obvious gaps - so have a think, and bung me your suggestions, however, remember nothing too specialist, and nothing that you can do easily with mime...

Another iTunes library hack

2008-06-11T18:38:00.004+01:00

Had a couple of nags for not posting enough here - time for a mini-post...

Something I've written about before, but it seems I just can't stop fiddling with my iTunes playlists.

My most recent addition is a "zz_filter" smart playlist (so named so as to appear out the way at the bottom alphabetically), which I use in combination with most other playlists to ensure that the following songs are not included in the final list:

Songs under 30 seconds long
Songs over 8 minutes long
Songs of 2 stars or less
Tracks from non-music genres, for example comedy and audiobook(which also includes 100 tracks used for programming my belkin fm transmitter gizmo.)

While I'm here I'd also recommend that, if you haven't done so for a year or two, you consider restoring your iPod to the factory defaults and re-syncing it. Mine was failing to sync, so I did this to fix that, but as a bonus I've found it's now docking and undocking quicker and is also quicker to navigate round the menus - it's like a new machine :-)

Memory tricks

2008-02-13T09:30:00.004Z

I like GTD. I use my task list well, and review regularly. However occasionally I want to be reminded of a task in a very specific location, or at a very specific time.

Below are a list of examples, and the tactics I've developed to trigger a reminder.

leave something on the floor by the front door to be reminded when you leave the house
take a key off your keyring and leave it loose in your pocket/bag to be reminded when you get home or when you go to drive somewhere
turn the alarm clock around, or put it on the floor to be reminded when you wake up
take a digital photo of something odd or oddly mundane (a fork, finger, foot) to be reminded when you're in front of a computer (syncing the photos)
slip something extra alongside your bookmark to be reminded when you have some spare time

In summary: Think of where you'd like to be reminded and change something in that location to be out of the ordinary.

Key uses for Facebook

2007-08-14T16:39:00.000+01:00

I've had a few months off work recently, and I've got quite into Facebook in that time. It's an amalgam of applications I've wanted to see made for ages: Finally, a social networking site that *works*.

When discussing this with friends, there's been several occasions where we haven't been able to adequately summarise or analyse what it actually does, so I thought I'd have a go, in the cold light of day, at distilling my experience.

As Green Day once sang, “are you feeling like a social tool without a use?” Facebook's 5 top replies, as I see them, are:

Finding real world friends and acquaintances. Like Friends Reunited, though not just for school. Couple of nights ago I was at the Real Ale Festival with my former colleague Dylan, who's returned to London after 5 years away – guess how he found me. Another, more leftfield, example: I'm have 5 friends in my Wii address book now, guess how we found each other's numbers?
Keeping in contact with your friends and organising events. Lose your phone? Organising a party? Facebook's there to help. I'm going climbing on Wednesday, I know where, when and who with through a Facebook group.
Collating and displaying your own internet presence in one place. Flickr, Last.fm, B3ta, blogs etc. Now you can put them all in one place, and you don't even have to give people a URL: “It's on Facebook” will suffice.
Actively playing games and chatting with your friends. Scrabble, vampires, grafitti... you could lose months on this bullet point.
Passively seeing what your friends are up to. The main feed's great, it's where you can see the highlights of what your friends are talking about, going to, doing. Several times I've discovered a common interest, or something I wanted to know more about, and ave been able to follow it up next time we're down the pub.

Thing is, you don't have to be interested in all 5 for Facebook to be useful. As with any tool, it's up to the workman to get the best use out of it. I believe from these individual uses stem two main modes of use, utilisation (1, 2 & 3) and entertainment (4 & 5).

I'm back at work next week, I'll leave you to decide which mode I'll be sticking to.

Fitting new front speakers to a 1967 Ford Mustang coupe

2007-03-21T16:30:00.001Z

My car's old, and I like that. However I've never had any problem with the modernising of old things, as long as it's done subtly, so when I realised I couldn't hear my rear speakers at 70mph, and that the original single central speaker just wasn't going to cut it (even if I got it working) it was time to get chopping:

Before I started:
Spray the new speaker covers (but not the cones of course). Two coats should do it:
Chop the requisite holes in the side panels as shown. Make sure the drivers side hole is far enough forward that the large bundle of wires that side doesn't get in the way of the back of the cone:
Assemble it all:
Finished!:

Compact camera flash hacks

2007-03-19T21:10:00.001Z

I love my little digital camera (a two year old Casio Exilim) - it's tiny, yet with enough exploring of the menus it can be set to behave just how I like... Except in one regard: The flash. It's not adjustable and always seems to be too bright when used indoors, so here's some hacks I've adopted to get round this.

I keep half a train ticket in my wallet to put over the flash for close ups, it lets just enough light through. And of course if you need it, using thinner paper means more light.
I've bought a really cool, very cheap, bendy pocket tripod (search ebay for bendy tripod to see what I mean) to use (without the flash, and with a 2 second delay) on static subjects.
Zooming in and standing further away is an old favourite of course, but is still usually a bit stark for my tastes.
If it's a party you can get quite a good effect by putting on the flash alongside the "fair weather" setting (indicated with a sun icon). That means the flash goes, capturing the subject where you want, but the shutter stays open for a bit, making light sources brighten and generally fuzzing the edges and dropping the brightly exposed initial shot back into the mix. That's not the best explaination, so here's an example of the fair weather mode in action. You can also have some fun moving the camera around a bit too. :-)
Finally, I could always buy another camera: Anti-shake mode, low-light mode and adjustable flash power are all common options nowadays. Something to consider when debating the next purchase anyway...

As an aside: In theory pushing the ISO up and suppressing the flash might buy you some leeway, but my Exilim only goes to 400 & I've never managed to get a noticable improvement in the results, but it may work for you...

Dates for your diary

2007-03-18T20:26:00.000Z

There's certain dates I used to find myself putting into my electronic calendar every year, but set up a few rules and use a few hacks and you won't need to:

UK Bank holidays can be added manually from the bank holiday page of the DTI site. For the days off work the following rules can be set up:
- New year - first weekday in January
- Easter - based around the lunar calendar, so you'll have to look this up each year
- May day - first Monday in May
- Spring (Whitsun) - Last Monday in May
- Summer - Last Monday in August
- Christmas and Boxing day - first two weekdays on or after the 25th December
Additionally there's an Outlook shortcut which automatically populates these dates and more: Tools > Options > Calendar > Add holidays > select your country (and religion if so desired).

Note also that there are Scottish, Welsh, Irish and Cornish holidays that I haven't included, because I don't get to have them. :-(
Clock changes in the UK occur on the last Sundays in March (forward) and October (back).
Mother's day - 4th sunday of lent (so no repeating rule for that either), father's day is the third sunday in June.
Random days you might want to note: Pancake day (AKA Shrove Tuesday), fireworks night (5th November) & International Talk Like a Pirate Day (19th September). NB: National days (George, Patrick) are included by the Outlook tool above.
Lastly, birthdays: Put them in (as recurrances) whenever you find them out, and set reminders depending on how much warning you need (e.g. 4 days if you'll be sending them a card, or just one for an email or text). I'd also make sure you put at least a surname initial in: "Paul" might not be enough in a few years. While you're there, mine's the 14th December. Cheers, mine's a pint.

Spare cash? lucky you.

2007-01-16T09:53:00.000Z

You want to be putting cash into your savings for a rainy day, right? Well yes, but only after you've done a few other things:

Pay off your credit cards (they're a terrible way to borrow money), or at the very least convert the debt into a bank loan - then pay that off instead.
Get a mortgage. I know it's hard, and it might not be the perfect time right now, but on average house prices double every 10 years, you'll avoid having to deal with the fluctuation of the rental market (plus the regular move costs, landlord charges and unreturned deposits etc) and any repayment you make quickly mounts up. If you can't afford it on your own consider going in with a friend - worked for me, and even if you fall out, as long as it's been a year or so you'll probably recoup the move costs.
Get an offset account for that mortgage. You save on interest, which as borrowing interest will always be higher than savings - and it's effectively tax free, because it's money you're not paying rather than money you're being paid.
Start a pension - the payments come off your wages before tax (so £60 = £100 if you're lucky enough to be a top rate taxpayer) and it'll be handy when you get wrinkly.
Finally, if you still have any cash left you're ready for that savings account. For your first £3k a cash ISA's a good place to start as the interest comes tax free. After that you have another £4k per annum that can go into a longer term stocks and shares ISA. You might also consider National Savings, as any winning from that are tax free too, and you never know - you could win the million and not care about any of this ever again.

Media tech I won't buy again

2006-11-13T15:17:00.000Z

I'm nearly thirty - look what techy media stuff I've outlasted:

CRT tellys (with analogue recievers)
Video recorders (Beta & VHS)
Casette players
Vinyl record players
FM radios

So when I'm 60 will BluRay/HD DVD, HDTV, DAB & MP3's look so outdated?

Answer: Of course (cool! :-)

iTunes library hacks

2006-11-07T21:34:00.001Z

I recently completed a year-long sweep of my mp3 (or m4a to be precise) library, cleaning out the cruft and sorting the metadata in a proper geek-out manner. This is what I did:

Obvious one to start, but: I used "Show duplicates" (in the "View" menu) to find tracks I had several copies of. Great track though it is I don't need 5 identical copies of "Burn Baby, Burn".
I then trimmed my genres down to about 20 (from the 60 or so options Gracenote DB had chosen - HipHop, Hip-Hop and Hip Hop - thanks!). This is a manageable figure that means I actually use that classification now. I also set up 3 meta-smart playlists: Hard (rock, indie etc), soft (chilled, easy, ambient etc) and bouncy (hard house, indie dance, psy-trance etc).
Next I set up smart playlists to play all the tracks that I hadn't listened to yet - this turned out to be an impressive ~5000 of ~7000 tracks.
As they played through over the next 11 months I flagged crap tracks as 1 star for later removal (some 700 tracks by the end of the process), and tracks where the metadata needed attention with 2 stars. (I had to use the flags as they're both things that you can't do on the iPod itself.)
Finally I added sleeve art to most of my tracks automagically using the excellent "Tune Sleeve" software. This particularly beats iTunes 7 sleeve art function as that doesn't embed the images in your mp3 file (so presumably they don't turn up on whatever mp3 player you use), and also it forces you to sign up (with credit card details!) to run it.

Internet reads that have made me cry with laughter

2006-11-05T14:31:00.000Z

Very rare, but sometimes something just hits the spot and the giggling commences. Here's 5 reads I can think of on the internet in this category (mostly NSFW by the way):

Wait, that Chuck Norris one's a bit obvious, how about Uncyclopedia's history of WWII instead? Bit geeky I guess, but that's the internet for you :-P

How I deal with email

2006-11-03T10:06:00.002Z

I get about 60 mails a day at work and 15 or so personal mails - a fair amount, but by no means unnusual - here's how I keep the email monkey off my back:

If a mail requires further attention and I don't have time right then, I flag it - Gmail's starring system or Outlook's flags both do the job.
I delete everything else as soon as I've read it. My inbox therefore only contains mails I still have to deal with.
I keep my deleted items for at least three months, that way I'm less scared to delete things as I can always get them back. It's amazing how rarely I need to though. :-)
I only have automated sorting rules for lists that never or rarely require action - chat lists, newsletters etc - I don't squirrel away potentially important mails in a misguided attempt to be tidy because if it's not in my inbox I probably won't read it for days.
Finally (my favourite tip) - in order to get some actual work done I disconnect outlook when I'm coding so that little envelope sys-tray icon doesn't distract me. Note "disconnect" rather than close - I still (unfortunately) need the meeting reminders :-(

UPDATE: Nowadays I leave outlook connected, but have turned off the notification icon. Same effect, but I don't have to keep changing outlook settings.

Spam

2006-07-06T23:05:00.001+01:00

Hate spam? Me too. Here's my tips on how to get less

Buy your own domain name so you can have as many aliases (the bit before the @) as you like, then only give your chosen alias out to friends and family. For companies *always* give them an alias that uses their domain name - for example amazon.co.uk@yourdomain.com. If you get spam you'll a) know who let your details out and b) be able to block them easily.
Redirect all the common aliases for *all* domain names you own to a dummy address, I use nospam@easily.co.uk. These aliases might include: sales, info, webmaster, accounts, accounting, enquiries, office, administrator, billing, admin and contact.
Use an email service with a spam filter. Google Mail has a good one, and it's free.
If you want to put your address online then obfuscate it so spam bots are less likely to pick it up. For example: alias[at}yourdomain(dot]com

If you're posting it on your own site you can use javascript to tidy it up and make it a link. Put this in a script tag in the head of your page:

window.onload = function(){
if (document.getElementById){
//You can obfuscate this as much as you like
var where = "@"
var mail = "alias" + where + "yourdomain." + "com";
//then put it into the page
document.getElementById('email').innerHTML=
'<a href="mailto:'+mail+'">'+mail+'</a>';
document.getElementById('emailExplanation')
.style.display="none";
}
}

And this in the body of your page:

<p id="email">
alias (at] yourdomain {dot) com
</p>
<p id="emailExplanation">
(Excuse the odd formatting of that email
address - it's to try and throw spambots
off the scent.)
</p>

CSS Creation

2006-06-25T22:42:00.001+01:00

Having sat in on an interesting all-star seminar on CSS organisation at @Media 06 I figured I could post 5 tips about how I did for the template I've just built for this blog. It won't suit every person and every project of course, but you might be interested:

While writing the markup (before the CSS of course), copy all the id and class names into a CSS file as they are added to the page. This means when it's completely finished any empty (and therefore unused) ones can be removed from both the CSS and the markup.
Use the
```
@import 'your.css';
```
CSS filter format to hide presentation from v4 PC browsers and Mac IE.
Put any hacks in a separate file, using IE conditionals to include it - I like this because it means only IE users have to download the extra file: Serves them right.
For small sites have one CSS file. Use comments in this file to split it up and find your way about. I suggest "Global" (with "Layout" and "typography" sub-sections) then individual page sections (e.g. "mainContent" etc.). For large sites the number and organisation of files will depend on the design. You may have a global CSS file and then individual files for each discrete site section or you may have a global file and then separate files for repeated page elements, or both - whatever's suitable, but use the comments either way.
Have individual CSS rules all on one line so the file doesn't get too tall (it's harder to read initially, but you get used to it) and order with positional values first, then sizing then decoration to help quickly spot the bit you need.

Choosing a T-Shirt

2006-06-20T23:02:00.000+01:00

I realised recently I have a set rules / patterns I observe when choosing T-Shirts to buy. Here they are:

No slogans, especially funny ones. It's not the 80's any more.
Avoid logos. I'm not a walking billboard.
Don't buy ringer-less white cotton - they always look like you got it free with 10 beers, whatever's actually printed on it.
I don't like designs with straight edges, imprecise edges helps it blend with the rest of the shirt and look much classier, as does having the print somewhere other than the centre of the chest.
Don't shop where everyone else does. The internet helps here - here's my shortlist of favourite suppliers. NB however that American sizes are sometimes one up from UK ones - get measurements if you can.

Travelling in London

2006-06-20T22:18:00.000+01:00

TFL have quietly introduced a few cool tools recently, forming the backbone of my 5 top tips for travelling round London efficiently:

You can go to the Oystercard Shop and set your Oystercard* to auto top up from your credit/debit card whenever it drops below £5. No more queueing to top up as the last train departs.
It's quicker to walk between some stations. Well we all know that, but which ones? This map shows all stations that are within 500m of each other. Here's a compendium of tube map versions while we're at it.
Fed up of the slow online journey planner? Use the PDA version instead. (Thanks Nik.)
You can get updates texted or mailed to you when lines you use are affected by repair work with the TFL travel alert service.
And if you're too late for the tube it's night busses or minicabs. Where can you get the number of the local minicab from though? Why, TFL of course. This mobile service will return you the text of a licences firm near where you are right now. Summary: HOME to 60835.

* I won't bother saying get an Oystercard - whatever your concerns about privacy it's too much of a cash benefit to eschew.

Get less real world mail

2006-04-04T10:19:00.000+01:00

If, like me, excess post offends you, both from an efficiency point of view, and an environmental one, give these 5 things a go:

Let’s start with the daddy: Sign up with the Mail Preference Service (http://www.mpsonline.org.uk/mpsr/). This is a list set up by the UK’s direct mailers ostensibly to avoid wasting cash delivering unsuitable direct mail, though more likely it was done to avoid increased regulation from government. Either way it’s legit, and should be your first point of call. While you’re there check out the telephone preference service too.
Return old inhabitant’s post. Print out a bunch of sheets of address labels saying something like “Addressee no longer known at this address. No forwarding information left. Return to sender” Slap them on everything that has someone else’s name on it that comes through the door, cross out your address and then pop them back into any postbox.
Get a “No circulars” sign. This will stop the more scrupulous of leafletters. Ebay or Google can sort you out with one of these for a few quid.
Opt out of the Royal Mail’s “Door to Door” service by emailing optout@royalmail.com for a form. Rather stupidly this also opts you out of official government information leaflets (not that I can recall the last time I had one of those), but if you just watch the news occasionally I’m sure you’ll survive.
Unsubscribe from BT phonebook (0800 833 400 > option 1 > option 1), Yellow Pages, Thompson Local and any other fat directories you get dropped on your doorstep annually. Online is invariably a better way to search for this stuff and you won’t have to clutter up a drawer with these massive tomes either.

Some del.icio.us tips

2006-01-10T12:07:00.001Z

Up to a year ago I never kept any bookmarks. For a start I had multiple computers, and I also knew any collection I started using existing browser systems would be unmanageable within 6 months - so I avoided the problem by not bothering, and just spent a bit more time using Google and speculatively typing into the address box than was ideal.

Then (a year or so late to the party as usual) I found del.icio.us, and, with the help of a Firefox extension, I've not looked back. Here's a top 5 things I've done to make it work best for me:

I've used a matrix of tags, crossing function, or action, of link (like "download" or "reference") with category (like "cars" or "CSS"). This gives a large number of tagging options, without generating a large number of tags: After a year I have half a dozen functions and 20 or so categories.
Del.icio.us now has "Bundles" - this allows you to define a name for a group of tags, which fits in nicely with the action vs category idea above.
One of my tags is "inbox". This is for stuff I don't want to store permanently (and so don't want to lose in amongst everything else) but don't want to deal with right now. It therefore also serves as a good place to visit when I find myself with a bit of spare surfing time.
I've considered putting my work bookmarks in too - intranets, dev servers and the like. They're no use to anyone else of course, but for hotdesking and for the bi-annual data loss from "uh-oh, there goes the hard disk" vs. "hmm, that application doesn't seem to be part of my roaming profile" it can be handy. I chose against it for security & work policy reasons in the end, but it may work for you.
The Firefox extension "Foxylicious" is the crowning glory of all this. This widget gets my links off del.icio.us and copies them into a folder in my browser's bookmarks. It can be set to nest tag combinations two levels deep (suiting the matrix I use too), using tags as the folder names. You can also use your bundles as folders too, which you may prefer.

You can see all this at del.icio.us/mathampson/.

IPod & iTunes wishlist

2005-12-28T15:59:00.001Z

I’ve become a bit of an Apple fanboy. I didn’t mean to: I’m well aware that such a feeling is born of mostly out of good marketing. I don’t kid myself these people love me. They love my wallet. However, it’s fun, so I indulge myself sometimes.

Anyway thing is, fanboys tend not to push the companies enough, and I feel guilty about that, so by way of reparation here’s a top five for Apple…

5 things that I’d like iTunes and the iPod to do:

Let me use a different EQ setting based which iPod out port is in use: On its stand (thus through an amp and speakers) “flat” is fine, when headphones are plugged in I might well want something different. Similarly it might be nice to have the option to use a different EQ setting based on genre: If I play “rock” use the “rock” preset.
If a podcast is short, play the next one rather than returning to the menu root. A 2 minute podcast (of which there are many) results in me digging out the pod to get it playing again. 10 minutes should be a decent cut off.
Leave the folder structure intact for backup copies of full size images automatically stored on the iPod. What’s the point of storing them on there if I can’t find pictures when I grab them back off it? Same goes for the music files themselves, but I suspect that’s a deliberate attempt to discourage copying. It’s for battery efficiency you say? Yeah – whatever.
Allow the user to browse smart playlists in iTunes, & ideally on the iPod too. If you choose “all my unplayed stuff” or something similarly wide ranging and you end up with 5000 songs it’s virtually impossible to find anything. In other words some kind of filter functionality rather than lists.
Make the iTunes store something other than complete sh!t. Low bitrate & DRM: The ubiquitous double whammy that makes buying music on the internet mostly pointless at the moment. I don’t want to waste all this postage & packing by buying physical CDs off Play and Ebay, but it’s not only better for quality and flexibility of use, but usually cheaper too. What’s up with that?

Oh, and the other fanboys will have to excuse me if some of this is already possible - do let me know :-)

The first post

2005-12-28T15:48:00.000Z

Most people started their blogs years back. I know. I was there. I watched as people posted pictures of bad art, made insightful comments, had pointless arguments, made brilliant discoveries and so on: "All shades of humanity? I’d like you to meet the internet – please play nice." I've discerned patterns, honed my bull receptors, and generally got a bit older and wiser. I think now I could write a blog that's worthwhile.

And of course my own rampant ego demands it, but let's keep that between ourselves ok?

To kick off here's 5 things I'm not keen on in blogs:

Huge long posts that stray regularly from the point. Get in, make your point, get out.
Pointless links to other blogs ("John just said something cool over at..."), unless I'm constructively commenting it's just wasting the readers time.
Memes - way better to go to some collaborative link engine like del.icio.us or Reddit.
Personal stuff mixed in with the rest. This is meant to be interesting to everyone, not just my mates. Read my diary at hampson.org.uk if you like.
Boring posts about the blog itself. Oh. Wait. Dammit...