Real-life Simpsons intro

9 Mar 2006: Just how long did this take to do? Utterly fantastic.

More British than a British thing

4 Mar 2006: There’s a half-decent, half-British, half-American Half Man Half Biscuit interview on Popmatters today. It says: “A big part of America’s problem, of course, is that Half Man Half Biscuit (HMHB to their friends) are so very British that, to a lazy listener, they must sound positively alien.” Count the missus in on that one, and she’s an Essex gel.

Sky+ …too noisy for the bedroom?

26 Feb 2006: Well, we thought so. Full marks to Sky for agreeing to exchange our new Sky+ unit for a coventional Digibox, but really, they should warn you about this in the first place. For a start, the more recent Sky+ 40Mb boxes, made by Thomson, are really noisy compared to the old ones, both in terms of their fans and a real problem with loudly accessing the hard drive almost continually (this latter “feature” is supposedly being cured by a software upgrade soon). That would be bad enough in a living room, but it’s impossible to live with in a bedroom, where you have to sleep a few feet from the box. Why not put the thing into “standby” every bedtime? [...]

Cambridge Folk Festival on Google Earth!

11 Jan 2006: Wow! Two great discoveries today. Not only is Google Earth available for the Mac now, but the aerial shots of Cambridge were taken while the last Cambridge Folk Festival was on. Look! That’s me and me mates on that rug, no really! Type in something like “walpole road cb1 uk” to get close. Yes – the Folk Festival and My House …together at last!. And another shot at a nice angle captured for posterity.

Baby Tips are back!

9 Jan 2006: Big thanks to Jon Severn, who’d squirrelled away a copy of our Tips for Prospective New Parents which we’d written soon after Alex was born. It’s just a braindump of all the advice we wanted to give other new parents following our own experiences – stuff which you just knew you’d forget forever if you didn’t commit it to print. We sent it to a few other people, but lost it. However, one of those people (Jon) thought it was so useful, they’d kept a copy. And now I’ve done what I should have done way back then, and posted it here on the website.

Best Educational Items for Toddlers …Ever!

7 Jan 2006: Alex (aged 4 and three-quarters) got given a game for Christmas from his Godfather Paul which becomes an immediate new entry in my list of “Best Educational Items for Toddlers …Ever!” It’s called Rush Hour and it’s a logic puzzle which is apparently for eight-year-olds and upwards (certainly all grownups love it), but it hasn’t so far proved insurmountable for a four-year-old, and I’d thoroughly recommend it. In fact, you can “try before you buy” because there are online (Flash) versions such as this one: Online Version of Rush Hour So here is my current list of “Best Educational Items for Toddlers …Ever!”: 1. Google Earth – should be compulsory in reception years in schools. Watch in amazement as it [...]

In-car iPod – let’s do one properly!

27 Nov 2005: Why is it everyone seems to think that to play our iPods in the car we want some stupid bit of plastic on a stalk, with wires going in to the back of the existing hi-fi, all at great installation expense? What we want is an in-car hi-fi which you can slam the iPod into, just like a cassette (or an oldschooltastic 8-track). Why does nobody make one? Yes, something like this: Or perhaps someone does make one. If so, let me know!

It started off as a match report…

23 Nov 2005: …but ended up as a rant. Sorry Joe, but it was one of those teamsheets which would have caused 20,000 people to have been gleefully emptying their wallets if Ladbrokes had been offering odds on “this is going to be a disaster”.

Best CDs of 2005 – a definitive list

21 Nov 2005: Yeah, OK, maybe not that definitive, I reserve the right to amend this when people remind me of something obvious which I’ve forgotten. But at the moment it’s definitely, definitely this: 1. Achtung Bono by Half Man Half Biscuit 2. Takk by Sigur Ros 3. Aerial by Kate Bush 4. The Girl Who Couldn’t Fly by Kate Rusby 5. Tales from Turnpike House by St.Etienne 6. You Could Have It So Much Better by Franz Ferdinand 7. Confessions On A Dance Floor by Madonna 8. Eye to the Telescope by KT Tunstall 9. Warnings/Promises by Idlewild 10. Light and Shade by Mike Oldfield Honourable mention, although it’s just a bit too silly for inclusion, to Rock Swings by Paul Anka. [...]

Onsite Advertiser Sign-up: P45s for the Ad Sales team?

20 Nov 2005: I’ve read loads of reports about the new Google Onsite Advertiser Sign-up facility and seen one semi-decent discussion of it, but nobody quite seems to have got it yet. Advertisers can now choose a site and say to Google: “manage my ads on this site please – I’m not going to book direct any longer.” For the past couple of years, I’ve been saying that whilst AdWords has made Google one of the largest advertising mediums in the world, the most significant thing about AdSense is that it’s making Google the largest media buyer in the world. Several more pieces are needed along the way for this to fully happen, but with the introduction of image ads (giving the advertiser [...]

George Bush Speech cut up

14 Nov 2005: I was talking to someone the other day about the famous “Bushwacked” cut up George Bush speeches, and they asked for a link, so as a public service, here it is. I think they were produced by Chris Morris.

Explorer Destroyer – Switch to Firefox, Make money from Adsense

10 Nov 2005: You already want people to switch to Firefox. Now’s the time to get serious about it. Google is paying $1 for each new Firefox user you refer. This is pretty amazing. Now you can advance your ideals, save people from popups and spyware hell, and make some serious money. Millions of people have heard about Firefox and are ready to switch – all they need is a friendly push.

Oneforall remote control and Sky+

16 Oct 2005: This is more of a public service announcement than anything of wider interest! But sometimes when you solve a problem, you want to put the answer on the web so others in the same situation can benefit. So, if you’ve got a Oneforall (One For All) remote control, like I just bought, and you want it to work with a Sky+ (Sky Plus) box (the original 40Gb one, anyway), the code is 1175. I repeat (for the benefit of a good Google search result): oneforall sky+ box code = 1175. We’ll be right back after the break.

A night of shining torches

16 Sep 2005: “The Storr: Unfolding Landscape” was a remarkable ‘environmental animation’ created this summer on the Isle of Skye, which four of us in the Pro-Talk team (Jackie, Laura, Tony and I) were able to take part in. Participants – there were up to 200 each night for seven weeks – trekked 1500 feet up a rocky hillside, in the darkness at midnight, to a Skye natural landmark, The Old Man of Storr. On the way, the walkers experienced a number of sound and light installations designed to add atmosphere to this unusual opportunity. Of course, at night there’s no sense of scale, and very little sense of distance. But you can probably get an idea of what it’s like from this [...]

Google Talk IM is here

24 Aug 2005: Woo! Google’s instant messaging system seems to be here. And it works with other clients including, and most excitingly, iChat on the Mac. Now off to test!