Witterings from within

Dolphin watching in the sun

Sat, 05 Jun 2010 15:31:30 +0100

My son , @philellwood, has popped up for the weekend. Having done some son-dad things like going for a pint, curry, and discussing iPhone app programming :-), we’d decided to go out for a wildlife trip.

In Cromarty, we have an excellent operator called Ecoventures, who run dolphin/wildlife trips on their 9.5m RIB Saorsa. We booked on to it yesterday and went out on the 1300 trip.

Quick trip down the Firth to check for dolphins, passing some of the oilrigs in the Firth

[Image credit Andrewrpalmer CC-BY-SA-3.0]

On the way back out we saw multiple groups of dolphins - feeding, and some playing;probably about 20 or so, a number of which tracked along by the boat.

We also saw cormorants, shags, razorbills, kittiwakes, guillemots, fulmars, and black-backed gulls.

A trip I’d recommend to anyone.

The election, jobs, and benefits claimants

Sun, 02 May 2010 12:37:57 +0100

Lots of talk about:

“We’re the party of jobs” [well, if they’re Government jobs you’re paying for them out of my pocket]
“It’s unacceptable to refuse a job when it’s offered” [lots of people *aren’t* offered jobs]

I was chatting with a colleague about working hours - for 20+ years my working day has started between 4 a.m. and 8.30 a.m. and ended between 5 p.m and 10 p.m. His the same, except he’s had to work more overseas.

We discussed some of our acquaintances on jobseeker’s allowance or other benefits. Very many of them led what I’d call unstructured lives; often not getting up until lunchtime or afternoon, and then not getting to bed until the wee small hours. They seemed to become detached from wider society - not being much involved in what was going on around them. One didn’t know British airspace had been closed for over a week.

It’s hard to move from that sort of existence into a mainstream working existence. One suggestion made was to move to an earlier signing on, and a more frequent appearance at offices. It means you have to get up, get to a designated area and present yourself on time. Like you would have to for a job.

It’s not much of a step to suggesting that in exchange for your benefit, you spend some time doing work of benefit for the community - say 10 hours a week litter picking, graffiti cleaning - or working with some voluntary body, say the WI or “Friends” groups for your local hospital.

I don’t actually see why that’s wrong; if I’m paying you because you can’t find work [it’s not the government’s money, it’s mine, my neighbour’s, your mother’s], shouldn’t I hope that you’d spend your time doing something other than watching CSI reruns, at least some of the time?

DNS problems? Network problems?

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 08:51:08 +0000

Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]

C:\Documents and Settings\steve>ping www.google.co.uk

Ping request could not find host www.google.co.uk. Please check the name and try

again.

C:\Documents and Settings\steve>ping www.google.co.uk

Pinging www-tmmdi.l.google.com [66.102.9.103] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 66.102.9.103: bytes=32 time=54ms TTL=47

Request timed out.

Reply from 66.102.9.103: bytes=32 time=53ms TTL=47

Reply from 66.102.9.103: bytes=32 time=56ms TTL=47

Ping statistics for 66.102.9.103:

Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 3, Lost = 1 (25% loss),

Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:

Minimum = 53ms, Maximum = 56ms, Average = 54ms

C:\Documents and Settings\steve>ping www.google.co.uk

Pinging www-tmmdi.l.google.com [66.102.9.99] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 66.102.9.99: bytes=32 time=53ms TTL=47

Request timed out.

Ping statistics for 66.102.9.99:

Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 1, Lost = 3 (75% loss),

Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:

Minimum = 53ms, Maximum = 53ms, Average = 53ms

C:\Documents and Settings\steve>

Lessons from Jamie Zawinski

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 12:45:51 +0000

I’ve loved stuff on the internet for quite a while. having had a variety of presence back for 14/15 years.When I started using Netscape I remember being able to do “about:jwz” and find all sorts of interesting things.
I like clever people; I look bemused at the stuff Paul Downey (@psd) does - and loved The URI Is The Thing and The Web is Agreement. He has a bee in his bonnet about Flash (OK, he has other bees) and style over content
http://twitter.com/psd/status/1423351123, http://twitter.com/psd/statuses/2789711537, http://twitter.com/psd/statuses/1020834328
You don’t need stuff to be unreadable to be attractive.One of Paul’s erstwhile colleagues, Phil Hawksworth, (@philhawksworth), is a passionate advocate ofUnobtrusive Javascript and Progressive Enhancement - and made an explanatory site about this. You can see the site at unobtrusify.com, and read how unobtrusify works.
So, you can make stuff look good and read properly.So, why the link to jamie Zawinski (@jwz)? Because the problem’s been there forever.
Back in 2001 Jamie put up a post about Design; some of the stuff in there has dated, a little - time has moved on since 2001. Having said that, some quotes give you a flavour.
“Now, there’s nothing wrong with trying to make your web pages look good to the largest number of people. But it’s a matter of priorities: if you place a higher value on the layout than on the meaning, then you don’t value your words very highly.” “More often, you see sites whose top-level page is entirely devoid of text and hyperlinks. It’s usually black, and usually has some kind of time-wasting animation going on. These days, more often than not, a huge Flash file with a spinning logo.”
“If the site uses all the latest crap, then it means that whoever’s site it is is more concerned with appearance than content, and the only reason for that would be that their content is crap. If they had worthwhile content, they wouldn’t have to dress it up in gaudy trappings to get people to think that there’s something there.”

If all these clever people recognise the problems - why don’t some web designers, and the companies they work for?

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I couldn't follow all that stuff; I can't even keep up with my email

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:19:00 +0000

I was talking about Twitter and Facebook, to a group of friends who are mixed age, but all professional.

They were aghast when I said I read blogs, used Facebook and Twitter. None of them knew what RSS was, or how it could help you manage the stream of data.

One colleague said “Well, I don’t see how you manage *your* email. You must have hundreds of addresses.” [I run the steveellwood.com, ellwood.org.uk, cromartycoastguard.co.uk domains, and several others, and post from whichever one is appropriate].

I explained I did them all from one mail client - which was my gmail (OK, Google Apps for Your Domain email, but I didn’t feel like quibbling); I’m fairly certain they didn’t believe me. *I* felt like crying.

There has to be scope to offer some easy training to peers; I’d happily do this pro bono.

Never mind a Windows 7 party.

Anyone ever fancied running RSS and gmail parties?

Image Credit: a4gpa

removing your signature from Posterous

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 09:38:00 +0000

More and more people are using posterous, and I can see why.
I use it as a sort of mini-blog/maxi-Twitter - as it’s so easy to get content into it.I’ve notice one or two people using Posterous and ending each entry with their email signature…

Reading the FAQ http://posterous.com/faq , I learn

“Remove your email signature
End your post with ‘#end’ and we’ll ignore any text we find after that. “

I hope that helps anyone new to Posterous a bit.

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Data in the cloud? Think Sass and RUB

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 09:56:59 +0100

My attention was drawn to the Times article http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article6871750.ece (incidentally, thanks to @AdamLiversage for that) which discusses the Microsoft/Sidekick disaster. I saw a comment which I thought was excellent -

chris robinson wrote:

There is no Sass without a rub …
Sass = Software as a SECURE Service
RUB = Relocatable user backup Unless you can get a full backup in an agnostic format of data (and preferably application too) which you can relocate to somewhere other than your service provider you are not secure. Period. You can get more details of Sass and RUB in Wikipedia or at the Webrecs website webrecs.com.au

ma.gnolia.com, Sidekick - who’s next?
My jungledisk backup stuff is being burned to DVD this week.

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Streaming Spotify to Squeezebox

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 10:09:00 +0100

I have 2 old original Squeezeboxes, that I love.
I use Squeezecenter(OS goodness) to stream mp3s round the house to those and other PCs.

I like Spotify, I thought it would be nice to stream that too. Sadly, there’s no API which would allow the community to integrate this into Squeezecenter.

I searched and found a post on GetSatisfaction from Magnus
http://getsatisfaction.com/spotify/topics/can_you_stream_to_a_squeezebox#reply_793164

“Ok, I will try to explain how I set up my system step-by-step. When I started setting this up I was quite confused by what icecast really is, so let me start by explaining this a little. As I have now understood it, icecast is just the broadcast server, but it turns out that it can not send any audio by itself - it needs another program to encode the stream and provide it, and that is the purpose of the edcast program that we need to install as well.

Anyway, here goes:

1. Download and install the Windows version of Icecast2 from www.icecast.org on the PC that you use for running Spotify. This does not have to be the same computer that are running the Squeezecenter, I use a Netgear NAS box for that.

2. Start the icecast GUI using the “Icecast2 Version 2.x” shortcut on your start menu, and select the Edit Configuration menu option. If your icecast server will be available outside the firewall you should change the default “hackme” passwords to something a bit more secure. (I only use it on my own LAN so I left them at the default values.) The default port number is 8000, I did not change that either.

3. Start the server. (It can be configured to start as soon as Windows starts which is convenient.)

4. Download and install Edcast Standalone 3.1.21 from http://www.oddsock.org/tools/edcast/.

5. Due to licensing issues edcast is not allowed to redistribute the LAME encoder to be able to encode mp3 streams, so you have to get it separately. It is only officially distributed as source code, but compiled Windows binaries can easily be found, for example from http://www.free-codecs.com/download/L…. Extract the zip archive (I think I used the lame3.98.2.zip one) to C:\Program Files\edcast.

6. Start edcast and click Add Encoder, right-click the newly created encoder and select Configure. Change the encoder type to “MP3 Lame”, server ip “localhost”, server port 8000, and the encoder password to the one you set in step 2 above. Click Ok to close the config dialog, and then Connect to start streaming to the icecast server.

7. If everything is working properly, edcast is now encoding whatever sound that is entering the soundcard and streaming it live. Since we want the music from Spotify to stream, we need to make sure that it is looped back using the soundcard. This can differ somewhat depending on Windows version and your sound hardware. On my system, I can bring up the standard Windows volume control, select Properties from the Options menu and select Recording. Make sure that the source called “Mixer” is included in the checked items, click Ok to bring up the recording control, and make sure that the “Mixer” is selected as recording source.

8. Start Spotify and start playing some music. Mute the speakers on the PC if you like, since the purpose of all this is to use your Squeezebox to play it.

9. Go back to edcast and click the Peak Meter. If things are working, you will see a meter moving. Adjust the volume by dragging the slider or using the recording control if you still have it open.

10. On the squeezebox (or using the Squeezecenter web interface which is more convenient), go to Internet Radio and Tune in URL, and enter the following URL, but change the IP address to whatever your computer is called you your network: http://192.168.0.3:8000/stream.m3u
[Ed. Note - I found this failed for me, but I checked the Icecast “Source Level Stats” section and it said the stream was http://192.168.0.3:8000/stream.ogg
- which worked fine]
(You can, of course, store this as a Favorite.)

11. You should now hear the Spotify music on the Squeezebox!

12. To make it work even cooler, you can go into edcast and click the Edit button at the top to configure the metadata for your radio station. I set the Metadata field to “Spotify” and checked the “Grab Metadata From Window Title” and set the Window Class to SpotifyMainWindow. This will make edcast fetch the current artist and song title from the Spotify window and send it as metadata so that it displays on the Squeezebox’s display - how cool is that.

Quite a lot of steps, but it works great once you complete them all, so good luck! “

I can confirm this works on my setup, too.

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Using a custom domain name

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 15:02:13 +0100

having admired @mahemoff ‘s tumblr at http://mini.softwareas.com/ I decided I needed to improve my use of posterous. Mind you, I also need to blog more, tweet better, read more, learn my new job, requalify as a rope rescue technician, move professional community.

As an easy start, I decided to move my tumblog from the shaidorsai name to my name, and echo the “mini” subdomain that Michael , and others, have done. tumblr.com *do* provide some instructions http://www.tumblr.com/help/custom_domains
So, off to my registrar and set up a subdomain. Err, no. While 1&1 are my registrar, my DNS (and most of my hosting) is done via 5quidhost. So, setup a subdomain there, and point it to steveellwood.tumblr.com

No, not that easy. I can’t set the A record, so I have to request that via email. About an hour later, you can now benefit(?) from my pearls of wisdom at http://mini.steveellwood.com. Now, how do I get my wave to embed in my blog…. (wanders off muttering)

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I need to use posterous better

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 12:03:23 +0100

I’ve seen so many people doing smart things with it, like @mahemoff does at http://mini.softwareas.com/ I think what’s triggered the thought was seeing his post at http://softwareas.com/2010-the-year-email-took-off echoed by another work colleague (not one of the “usual suspects”)

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SocialVibe

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 18:38:21 +0100

SocialVibe:

You spend a lot of time creating great content and attracting an audience for your blog. What if you could use that influence to make a positive social impact? Now you can.

We’ve teamed up with…

May Wrap-Up

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 05:37:56 +0100

May Wrap-Up:

Sorry for this being the latest wrap-up ever.

May was a fun month for us. We rolled out a ton of new features: the ability to add YouTube videos and polls to comments, stats in your time…

Things in transition

Sun, 17 May 2009 17:36:41 +0100

Things in transition:

Back in October, I was reminding people to keep up with their social networks as the recession brought challenges.

While it was hardly prescient, it was brought home to me when my role…

What’s my blog about?

Sun, 17 May 2009 12:35:48 +0100

What’s my blog about?:

Image Credit:wordle

Forthcoming blog post subjects

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 14:14:12 +0000

I’ve had some excellent service from Logitech and PrezziesPlus.co.uk need to talk about that.
Want to talk about blue meanie/WP tattoo
More about KM

The Foreign & Commonwealth Office - social media experts?

Thu, 05 Feb 2009 18:35:16 +0000

The Foreign & Commonwealth Office - social media experts?:

I’ve just remotely attended a really interesting presentation in London [OK, I attended remotely], by Media Snackers who talked about engaging with the young, through social media and so on.

…

Social Media & Knowledge Management

Sun, 01 Feb 2009 13:29:48 +0000

Social Media & Knowledge Management:

Social Media in the Enterprise

I wondered about the impact social media tools were making in knowledge management for the enterprise. We have got some very rapid growth in the takeup of…

@SouthwestAir responds to questions to La Guardia

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 15:26:58 +0000

@SouthwestAir responds to questions to La Guardia:

I’ve posted about corporate use of Twitter before. I like the way it can build a brand’s position and personality.

I really liked this use of a response to a question from Jaunted by the Twitter…

Flock O’ Tweets - sorts tweeters into flocks

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 00:25:32 +0000

Flock O’ Tweets - sorts tweeters into flocks:

Every now and then you find a little mashup that makes you go “Now that’s a good idea!”.

Flock O’Tweets is one.
Put a group of those you follow in, separated by commas: out pops a…

Will your social media engagement scale?

Mon, 26 Jan 2009 17:02:34 +0000

Will your social media engagement scale?:

Do you listen to your customer?

We do … that’s what we all say. It’s what we all want to do. Sometimes, particularly in a big corporate, it gets to be a bit difficult to hear what…