It's a small, but uplifting, world

Reading "A Welsh View" this morning there was a post linking to the 25 most interesting webcams of 2005. One of the winners is PandaCam. I find it hard to disagree with the blurb at EarthCam, this has to be one of the most of the heartwarming webcams on the internet. I spent an uplifting hour or so this afternoon just watching Tai Shan playing in his feed tub.

The webpage also pointed out a forthcoming program on Animal Planet titled "A Panda is born" which follows the National Zoo's recent giant panda breeding efforts, culminating in Tai Shan's birth. I've set the Sky Plus Box (a UK version of TiVo) to record the program, it promises to be one of the highlights of the Christmas TV season.

The airing is at 7pm on New years Day in the UK, the webage says New Years Eve which I presume refers to when the program airs in the US.

It doesn't get much cuter than this

Panda Cub Tai Shan at the National Zoo in Washington, USA

If you have a minute, go and watch the video at the Washington Post.

Have you read my blog yet?

A really funny cartoon today on the the Savage Chickens blog.

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

Outlook and RSS

As big as the blogosphere is today the RSS explosion yet to come requires two things:

(1) the killer application for reading feeds

(2) a simple, consistent and generally understood way of subscribing to feeds

Robert Scoble's recent post (reproduced below) links to the blog of a Program Manager on the Outlook team. Having had a look at the source post I believe that the basis of the killer feed reader is being built into Outlook. Robert points out that synchronisation across PC's would be a killer feature, as would the capability to post to your own blog from Outlook.

Michael Affronti is a program manager on Microsoft’s Outlook team and is starting to write about the future of Outlook. Here he’s writing about RSS Aggregation into Outlook 12. I haven’t yet played with this feature. One reason? I’m happily stuck in the NewsGator family of products due to its synchronization features. See, if I read a feed on NewsGator on my desktop PC (which, ironically enough, gives you similar features to Outlook 12 in today’s Outlook) it marks it as read on the Web service and also on NewsGator on my Tablet PC and also on my new SmartPhone (and soon it’ll be synchro’ed with NetNewsWire on the Macintosh and FeedDemon and RSS Bandit on Windows) and also on the Media Center PC that’ll soon run my home office (which is how I’ll display stuff on my HDTV screen at home when I get that next year).

It’s going to be very hard for me to give up NewsGator because of this synchronization. Hey, Michael, is Outlook 12’s aggregator gonna hook up to NewsGator?

That said, don’t underestimate the effect of Outlook 12’s support of RSS here. It’ll bring millions of new businesspeople into the RSS world. This is HUGE. Outlook is probably the most used application in the world after Internet Explorer (and, on my desktop, is used more often than IE).

Via: [Scobleizer - Microsoft Geek Blogger]

Merry Christmas

Flight SC5 - I hope he's on time

Word of Mouth

This following post, from the excellent Church of the Customer Blog, serves to underline how truly powerful blogs (as the largest connected word of mouth network there is ever likely to be) are today, and are going to be in the future given the rate at which the blogosphere continues to grow. Blog search tools that help consumers zero in on product reviews and new services that aggregate product reviews and present them back in meaningful, helpful, inventive ways are likely to be technologies worth investing in.

Word of mouth is the chief influencer when it comes to purchase decisions, no matter the age group, according to a new study.

A few times per year, Big Research surveys a panel of 15,000 people; across the board, the panel ranked word of mouth as the most influential medium for buying stuff.

The 10 top list of most influential media, all age groups:

1. Word of mouth
2. TV
3. Coupons
4. Newspaper inserts
5. Read article
6. Direct mail
7. Magazines
8. In-store promotion
9. Cable TV
10. Internet advertising

Word of mouth that drives sales is the result of existing customers talking about your remarkable product, service, people, or experience, not because you put a guy in a chicken suit on a website.

Via: [Church of the Customer Blog]

Another find in the "Blog This Later" folder

Getting back into the habit of blogging I just found my "Blog This Later" folder, which is where I stick incoming blog posts that I found interesting enough that I wanted to blog about them but didn't have time to write a post there and then.

I found a gem from several months ago, which is actually two posts from the 43Folders blog about building a smarter to-do list. Here are some things I've snipped from the two articles that I found useful...

(1) Keeping an updated accounting of the things I'm committed to, is a smart thing to do.

(2) A to-do item should not be framed as project (e.g. create presentation) it should be framed as the next action, “the next physical, visible activity that needs to be engaged in, in order to move the current reality toward completion (e.g produce 4 draft ideas for the theme of my presentation)”

(3) If you frame a to-do as a physical activity it's easier to visualise yourself doing it

(4) Phrase the to-do in a form like: “VERB the NOUN with the OBJECT.” So, instead of "Year-end report,” use the more accurate “Download Q3 spreadsheet from server.” And, instead of “Get with Fred,” try “Email Fred on Monday to schedule monthly meeting.”

(5) Keep the to-do list about the now, use a separate list (someday/maybe list) for things that can't be addressed yet.

(6) Reflect on the list to check that items on it are the best use of your time, that you are the best person to do the task, that the task should be done now, and that the task really does need to be done.

(7) Treat the things on your list as a serious comittment.

(8) When you get an item that get's stuck, try a to-do that addresses why the item is stuck.

The full articles are here and here.

Actually the more I think about stuff like this, the more I think I want to focus my blog on Getting Things Done (the David Allen approach to stress free productivity), the visualisation of information using Mind Mapping (I use MindManager software from Mindjet), and personal productivity hacks. At the end of the day though I can always write about whatever is on my mind.

Technorati Tags: GTD, MindJet, MindManager.

Phil Spector

It being the start of my Christmas Holiday I have begun my traditional approach to getting into the spirit of things, listening to the Phil Spector Christmas Album (at least that's how I always refer to it). It just doesn't feel like Christmas until I've listened to that album a couple of times.

My wife, Linda, asked me if Phil was still alive and I checked out his Wikipedia entry, where a couple of things stood out:

(1) Spector had admitted in an interview with the British Daily Telegraph that he suffers from bipolar disorder and that he considered himself "relatively insane".

(2) On February 3, 2003, Spector was arrested for murder after the body of 40-year-old actress Lana Clarkson of Los Angeles was found at his mansion in Alhambra, California. Police responded to a 911 phone call from one of Spector's neighbors and discovered Clarkson, who had been shot and was pronounced dead at the scene. On November 20, 2003, Spector was indicted for Clarkson's murder.

Sad.

Meet the family - part 2

I love this picture of Mulder because it gives you an idea of just how big he is.

Blogging's First Family

If you ever read back through my blog you'll probably work out that one of my most favourite bloggers is Robert Scoble. I have to say though I've grown to love reading his wife's blog, Maryamie. I especially enjoy the quirky posts that Maryam writes that take a gentle sideswipe at Robert's geeky behaviour. Here is a link to a recent example.

And now Robert's son, Patrick, is blogging over at Mini Scobleizer.

The Sun: Maggots found on patient

I'm glad I wasn't eating my breakfast when I read this.....

A GRIEVING daughter told yesterday how she found MAGGOTS crawling on her stricken mum’s face in hospital.

Horrified Nyree Ellison Anjos saw the fly larvae near a feeding tube attached to mother Christine at Gloucestershire Royal.

Via: [A Welsh View]

Naked Conversations

Catching up with links to my blog on Technorati I see that I was given a mention on Naked Conversations, the blog by Shel Israel and Robert Scoble on which they wrote their forthcoming book. The link is part of a post in which I'm acknowledged as one of the many who left constructive comments during the book writing process. It seems that the acknowledgments will transfer through to the published book. What a nice touch. It will certainly make me buy at least one copy of the book! And maybe one for my Mum.

According to Amazon.com the book is available on January 24th, but the Amazon.co.uk site suggests it's available from January 3rd. Nice to see us Brits getting something first for a change (although I suspect that one of the dates is a typo). I'll go and pre-order my copy now.

Update: I did a search for the book via Froogle. Interestingly the book is still referenced as "Blog or Die" (which was going to be the book title at one point in time) by some retailers including Tesco, Play.com and DVD.co.uk. Pricing shows quite a variance, ranging from £12.74 to £15.29.

The coolest sites of the year

I've finished work for the year so I've got some time to blog a little more consistently than I have for the last few months. I spent an interesting few minutes this morning looking at the Time magazine "50 coolest websites". From the "tools and essentials" section of the article I took a look at TestMySpeed.com, which is USA specific but did pass me on to a UK site, Numion.com, which has a pretty nifty way of looking at how my connection to the internet is performing. We're upping the bandwidth on our connection to the internet at work so it might be an informative (and independant) way at looking how the new arrangement is performing.

Until we meet again Kaylee...

She was never meant to be my cat but on the day she came home with us she came and slept beside me when we went to bed. I think she bonded with me in those first few hours. I taught her to fetch. I crumpled up the silver paper from Kit Kat wrappers into a little ball and from our bed I could throw the ball so that it rolled downstairs and into the hall. She would fetch the ball and drop it back on the bed three or four times in succession, until she tired of the game and then I'd have to retrieve the ball. When I had surgery on the base of my spine and was finally able to sleep when the stiches came out, she curled up on my back and people who saw her said she was protecting me. She loved chicken and would take it from my fingers very gently without biting me. When people came round to house she would put on what were referred to as "sickening" displays of affection; jumping up on to my lap, nudging me with her nose, butting me with her head, purring lovingly. When we spent the evening quietly watching TV she would curl up and give me the most adoring looks, laying the back of her head on my chest and making googoo eyes at me. When I arrived home from work she would go into her "I'm beautiful" routine, displaying herself by stretching out and rolling, waiting for me to acknowledge her with a "yes, sweetheart, you are beautiful".

Yesterday, we had to take Kaylee to be rehomed. She couldn't take the stress of not being an only cat (we have two other cats) and cats in the neighbourhood coming to the front and back doors were slowly driving her nuts. We've taken vets advice, advice from cat behaviourists and advice from the RSPCA. Nothing worked. We've been trying to solve the problem for about two years. It was one of the most heartbreaking things I've ever had to do. I'm not ashamed to say that I cried all the way home from the shelter. I just hope that what we have done will give Kaylee the chance of a life without stress.

Yes, sweetheart, you are beautiful. Until we meet again Kaylee, know that I'll think of you every day.

Scoble Wins!

Have you tried FlickrTagFight ? It's a very nice use of the Flickr API to measure the relative use of two tags on Flickr. There are some predefined fights such as Man vs. Woman or Good vs. Evil. Or you can specify your own fight.

Scoble versus Orlowski....Scoble wins!

Ok, so I've been pretty quiet lately...

As you may have noticed, [but more likely is that you haven't noticed] I've not found the time or enthusiasm to maintain my blog lately. In both writing my blog and reading others blogs it occurred to me that blogs fall into three camps; (1) those that summarise, review and filter content from other blogs with a smattering of commentary on personal experiences with software or other nerdy pursuits [in which category my blog falls], (2) specialist subject blogs and then (3) those who write original material, mainly based on observation of life around them.

Looking at my own blog reading habits and the blogs I now subscribe to, there are one or two A list "aggregator" blogs [Robert Scoble, Tom Peters etc etc], a bunch of blogs that cover specialist subjects which are of interest to me [so this covers a bunch of Project Management, Mind Mapping and Getting Things Done blogs] and then the rest of my subscriptions are to blogs with something original to say [dooce, wil wheaton, Trevor Romain, Thrusher, Susan Bernard etc etc]

I've kind of worked out in my own mind that I could not, and actually do not want, to be a Scoble or Tom Peters or Dave Winer, which is not to say that I don't respect what they do, because I do. I don't think I could write a specialist blog because I see myself as a kind of jack of all trades within my professional disciplines of IT and Project Management rather than someone with a definitive specialty [although I recognise that I might just be blocked here]; and my life just isn't interesting enough to sustain an 'original content' blog.

So I'm kind of stalled with what to do with my blog, although I do occasionally think about what to do next with it. If I ever work it out, I'll go back to posting more often.

Blog Writer Review

My trial of Blog Writer didn't last long. The image integration turned out to be a pain, you need to specify an FTP site that will host the images. I was expecting something similar to Hello [which in effect provides you with the image hosting] with added desktop publishing features.

The product linking functionality has the feel of a feature which is, or could be, used to provide click thru revenue to the software provider.

I've uninstalled the product.

Only in America - Part 2

A man in Utah is auctioning his middle name on eBay. So far, bidding indicates that this is not going to be as popular a sale as the lady who sold her full name (see Only in America - Part 1).

"Only in America" could turn out to be a long running series.

Meet the family - part 1

Meet Toby.