notes: June 2006

Buy my ebook

Your Life in Web Apps is a 20-page PDF now on sale for six dollars (about three quid) from O'Reilly.

The idea was to explain real-life webapps to people who are interested in using them, but lack the time and inclination to go around trying them all out.

In the ebook, I detail a day spent entirely in webapps (which was only partly successful, highlighting that switching everything to webapps is still some way off); there's also some historical background, about how the development of the web and the recent growth of broadband connectivity have been key to the boom in webapps.

If you already know what you like about webapps, you probably don't need to buy this ebook. But if someone you know - your boss, or your spouse perhaps - is interested and wants to know more, it might be a helpful starting point for them.

Labels: work

Friday, June 30, 2006
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The MySpace mystery

An extract from this week's PA column..

To those of us who qualify as grizzled veterans of the web, MySpace is something of a mystery.

We find it astonishing that a site so packed with garish, browser-slowing pages crammed with mostly non-sensical ramblings by teenagers should be so incredibly popular. Of course, the rambling teenagers think differently.

For them, MySpace is the online equivalent of hanging out. It's not supposed to be about interesting content, the whole point of it is simply to be there. That's why most of the pages aren't, in themselves, very interesting. All they show is that their creator has a presence on MySpace, and therefore is doing the fashionable thing.

Millions of people have signed up for MySpace accounts, so quickly that traditional media couldn't just watch them do it. Rupert Murdoch's News Corp was quick to step in with a purchase offer, hoping that owning MySpace would grant it citizenship among this new generation of media purchasers - young people who rarely glance at newspapers, care little about magazines, but spend a lot of time in front of their computers.

The advertising industry has made the same observation and is throwing money at popular web sites and services in an effort to make some impact on these precious young eyeballs. The eyeballs, though, are moving.

Some observers argue that simply by having been purchased by a global media company, MySpace has already lost its "cool" factor. While it doesn't seem to have stopped people signing up every day in their thousands, the word is starting to spread about other, similar virtual hangouts.

And the one attracting most attention right now is called Bebo.

The basic idea is exactly the same. You sign up to Bebo mainly so that you can be on Bebo; your friends will all be there too, and together you can leave rude messages on eachother's web pages, draw silly pictures on each other's online whiteboards, and browse your friends' friends.

As with MySpace, anyone can add anyone else as a "friend". If your favourite band or a famous author has a Bebo page, they can become your friend in a click. Making friends is good; having lots of them shows you are an active Bebo user. Popular people will get connected to more new people, and therefore become more popular. It's addictive.

To the grizzled internet veterans, Bebo is lesser of the two evils, not because it isn't owned by a global media company (no doubt it soon will be), but because the web pages it produces are not nearly so offensive to the senses.

MySpace pages are, frankly, a mess. It's like the 1990s all over again, when people stuffed their primitive home pages with flashing text and pointless animated graphics. Only now, it's embedded pop videos and Flash music players that start playing whether you want them to or not. Page designs are frequently painful to the eyes, a mess of colour and content all jumbled together. Bebo pages can include the same things, but on the whole tend to be a little quieter.

Blame broadband. Back in the 90s, all this flashy stuff was frowned on because bandwidth was limited, and going online expensive. Every second cost pennies.

Now, with "free broadband for life" offers and ADSL modems being given away with every new mobile phone, there's no respect for bandwidth any more. The kids take it for granted, assume that it's endless, and fill it with their ramblings.

We grizzlies moan, but other than the affront to our eye for page design ("It were all blue links on a grey background back then,"), we've no real need to.

Labels: tech

Monday, June 26, 2006
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My Wikipedia contrail

Well, you did ask:

Category: Doctor Who companions
I was of the generation that sort of gave up watching half way through Colin Baker, and I realised I had no idea who any of the companions were from then until Rose Tyler. It was a quiet work day.

Blu-ray Disc
While writing an article, I wasn't sure if it was "BluRay" or "Blu-Ray" or "Bluray" or "Blu-ray"; turns out it's the latter.

Momus
Sorting out my record collection, deciding what to buy on CD when I finally get rid of all the vinyl (yes, it's going to happen, despite my recent thoughts to the contrary). Suddenly thought: Does Momus wear that eyepatch for a reason, or just because he's a pop star? There's a reason.

Strontium Dog
My mate Jaspre has written a book about Strontium Dog, but I had no idea who or what SD was.

The Housemartins
Couldn't remember Stan Cullimore's name.

Honey, We're Killing the Kids
I have no idea what this is doing in my Wikipedia contrail.

Labels: tech, writing

Sunday, June 25, 2006
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Dad and lad

Dad and lad, originally uploaded by gilest.

This was my Father's Day present from Barney; a portrait showing "Daddy and me holding hands and I am pretending to be a donkey." Brought a tear to my eye, it did.

Labels: family, photos

Monday, June 19, 2006
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At the Sunflower cafe

Helen sat outside the Sunflower cafe, on one of those pavement chairs made of chrome steel. On the chrome steel table in front of her was a strong coffee and a small chocolate stick, half-eaten. It was too chilly to be sitting outside, if she was honest with herself, but the temptation to be a posing note-writer was too strong.

In her hands she held one of the small black notesbooks, purchased just ten minutes previously in the expensive stationers' shop a little further down the road; and a good quality ballpoint pen.

She held the pen over the blank first page of the notebook, and wondered what on earth she should write.

The reason those posing people looked so cool, she realised, was that their black notebooks were roughened after months of posing on outdoor pavement cafe chairs. Each page in their notebooks was a mess of tightly kerned black characters with a very rare doodled illustration; the pages were slightly curled with use and the notebooks capable of being laid flat without closing themselves shut like insect wings.

Helen recalls:

"I must have looked like a bit of an idiot, rather than some arty farty poseur. I say with my pen over than notebook for 20 minutes or more and couldn't think of anything to write. In the end I had to give up so I could drink the coffee before it went cold."

Helen looked out at the business people rushing past. The rush hour had not officially begun, but there are always a a few people who leave early and walk hurridly down to the mainline stations to catch the earlier, less packed, commuter trains to suburbia.

It felt odd to be sitting outside the Sunflower cafe at this time of day. For years, Helen had popped in two or three mornings a week to buy coffee and a filled roll for her breakfast. She knew the staff very well in the mornings, but when she'd turned up this afternoon their faces had not registered hers for a while; it was almost a minute before they realised she was one of their morning regulars, then switched on their smiles. Helen felt uncomfortable.

Not as uncomfortable as she'd felt the morning she'd come in here, already late for work, ordered a coffee and bacon butty, and endured an uncomfortable 10 minutes talking to Big Alan. He was just as embarrassed as her, but neither of them were brave enough to say aloud: "I don't want to have to talk to you; please go away."

If she'd been able to pretend she'd not seen him, she would have. But it had been a busy morning, wet outside, and the cafe was humming with people and chat. As Helen turned away from the counter, one of the smiley staff, trying to help, had said, loud enough for the whole cafe to hear: "There's one last seat left over there, love."

And as Helen had turned towards it, and seen it, she'd locked eyes with Big Alan, who'd been sitting opposite, forking sausage and eggs into his mouth. For just a second their eyes held a conversation:

"Please, don't sit here."

"I don't want to sit there."

"Let's pretend we've not seen eachother."

"Let's."

But that's not how you behave, even in a city like London where people care little for anyone but their closest friends, and work relationships are the delicate string that holds fabric together; no, even in London, when you make eye contact your boss in a cafe, you fake a smile and go and sit with him.

Neither of them bothered to mention the time, since they were both late. But Big Alan waved his fork at her in greeting, then started eating faster.

Helen slid into the gap between the wooden bench and the formica tabletop, wincing as her knees brushed past Big Alan's knees. She tried to angle her legs sideways to avoid any further physical contact. Consequently she sat twisted and uncomfortable for the length of their talk.

Big Alan asked her about progress on some major projects he thought she was working on. She opened her mouth to correct him on some things; such-and-such project was completed two weeks ago, and she'd emailed him telling him so; so-and-so client had complained about the materials supplied and threatened to go elsewhere; income was down because there'd been a rash of resignations, which left fewer people to do the actual work; but closed it again because there was no point telling him this stuff just for the sake of having something to say. Instead, she remarked on the rainy weather, then asked him how his work was progressing.

He gave her a brief, curious look, then the words flooded from him.

"No-one understands what my job is all about, Helen," he said. A mouthful of sausage, and he continued: "Most of the time, it's just about making people happy. I have the management in New York and Tokyo to keep happy, and you wouldn't believe how mad they get when we" -- he waved his fork, seemingly indicating the whole of London -- "don't live up to the financials."

Chew, swallow, eat.

"Financials which have been set by those same bastards. People. People in New York and Tokyo. Numbers on spreadsheets that we have to meet.

"So then I come back here and try to make the staff here happy too. Try to make them feel like they can live up to those numbers."

Helen wondered if simply deleting the offending spreadsheets would solve the problem, removing the insistent numbers and therefore the pressure.

Big Alan slurped tea from a mug. He shifted in his seat and Helen was forced to angle her legs further away to avoid being touched again. She shivered, and bit into her butty.

(Look down on this scene from above, and you can see Helen's body almost at right angles to the table. She looks withdrawn, almost nervous. A balding patch can be seen on Big Alan's crown, something most of his staff haven't seen because he towers over them.)

His breakfast finished, Big Alan got up quickly and slid out from his seat. He didn't look at Helen's face.

"See you at the office," he muttered and waddled out.

Labels: fiction, writing

Monday, June 19, 2006
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"Baaaa-taaay!"

_MG_4953.jpg, originally uploaded by londonrubbish.

Monday, June 19, 2006
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And... you're back in the room

This domain has been moved to a new host over the last couple of days, not without some breakage of things on my part. Bits of this web site may not be working as expected for a while (the photo gallery needs re-building, for starters), so bear with me.

If you emailed me in the last 48 hours and got a bounce, now would be a good time to try re-sending.

Thursday, June 15, 2006
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Rising again

Rising Slowly is back, weather fans. Well, in a manner of speaking. Consider it emerging, blinking somewhat, from under an umbrella, casting its eyes skyward in case there's more rain on the way.

I spoke to the owners of a couple of "blog networks" during the hiatus; one was very keen to publish Rising Slowly, but wasn't so keen on the way I planned to do it (of which more below). Another wanted to turn it into commentary on climate change, from an American perspective, which didn't appeal to me very much. RS was praised for its straightforward Englishness, something I'd like to continue if I can.

As you'll see if you go and take a look, it's been pared down quite a bit. This is deliberate; I wanted to make it as quick and as simple as possible for me to add stuff. The content, such as it is, is driven entirely by automagic feeds from Flickr and del.icio.us. Of course, the simplicity also means that if I should ever feel the need to expand what's there, make it more detailed, I'll be able to with little bother.

Let me know what you think.

Monday, June 12, 2006
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Widcombe Crescent from behind

Widcombe Crescent from behind, originally uploaded by gilest.

Took my camera for a walk round Bath yesterday, as the afternoon waned and the sunlight bounced off the stonework in that way that it does. My target was Widcombe, and I managed to explore some of its hidden corners as I strolled.

More photos of Bath buildings in the gallery.

Labels: photos

Monday, June 12, 2006
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Notes on "Isambard Kingdom Brunel: A graphic biography" by Simon Gurr and Eugene Byrne

It's Brunel's 200th birthday this year, and Bristol is celebrating. The city owes much to the short little engineer, whose masterpieces still dominate much of the local architecture and transport infrastructure.

As part of the celebrations, and to teach the young 'uns about the great man, a graphic biography of his life was commissioned. Someone thought it would be a great idea to print off 130,000 copies of it and distribute them for free in libraries across the south west. I picked one up.

What a great book. Yes, it's aimed at 11-year-olds but I learned a great deal from it, and enjoyed the read as I went along. Everyone knows that Brunel built great things like bridges and ships and tunnels and railway lines, but I didn't previously know about his acts of almost insane bravery (rescuing trapped workers from the flooded tunnel under the Thames, for example), or any detail about his family life.

This is not your average freebie from the local library; it's professionally written and drawn, professionally printed. They could have flogged it for six or seven quid, and it would still have been a bargain. Chances are that unless you're passing a library in or around the south west-ish sort of part of the UK, you might find it hard to get your hands on a copy of this. You should try, though.

Labels: books

Thursday, June 08, 2006
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