02.12.09
Richard Long sculpture
testing
12.10.08
New design required
I think I need a new, cool, custom blog design to get me writing with a bit more frequently. Any suggestions? st_ash_, are you listening?
11.18.08
CrawlWall
A great session at PubCon Las Vegas 2008 (of many) was Competitive Intelligence : Know Thy Competitor Well with Jake Baillie, Andy Beal, Larry Mersman, William Atchison.
Bill Atchison’s approach to competitor snooping and scraping seemed smart, so I jotted down the product brand stamped on his Powerpoint slides, CrawlWall, and this morning I popped in to see what it was all about. Looks very promising, but not launched yet.
Bill, if you’re listening, it would be cool if you set up an email list to announce the product launch.
09.15.08
Gosh, Matt. Do you mean like Google vs Microsoft?
Captured from Matt Cutts’ Twitter:
TechTags Plugin [ Matt Cutts | Twitter | Microsoft ]
09.08.08
Contenerte - Rich content for websites in Spanish
José Ferrer has launched contenterte, a Spanish web content extraction service. His blog in Spanish is here.
I would just like to wish him the very best of luck
09.04.08
Sarah Palin and Hilary Clinton
There’s some talk that Sarah Palin was chosen as McCain’s running mate, because of her potential to capture the disenfranchised Hilary vote.
That seemed to me unlikely. Hilary’s voters may be from the more conservative of Democrats, but have no comparison to Palin’s rabid right.
Then it occurred to me that both would be good in the role of the mother in The Manchurian Candidate.
Google Chrome - Yes, it’s good but…
I’ve downloaded and tested it, and I like it. It won’t get me off Firefox yet because I’m so hooked on my plug-ins, and actually the thing I least like about Chrome is that I wish Mozilla had built it.
When Google was born, it was a white page with a search box, and little more. That was the reason it first one favour with geeks and then more normal people. Now Google is competing to be the world’s biggest ad agency, and tomorrow wants to be the new Microsoft. It’s a fantastic business that barely puts a foot wrong. But the net, just like the high street, is losing its diversity, and that is very boring, very dull.
The UK’s high street has M&S, Boots and Tesco. Tesco does everything. It wants to be your supermarket, your corner shop, your petrol station and your tailor. Here in Spain everthing is sold by El Corte Ingles, who also want to be all things to everyone.
I am not so much in a hurry that I want a one-stop shop for everything. I want variation and niche specialists like Mozilla. I don’t want another Tesco.
09.02.08
Experiment with Wordpress and Facebook
Can I get the two to link up? Watch this space.
TechTags Plugin [ wordpress | wordbook | facebook ]
They’re so good at Google they make me want to puke.
They don’t just want to launch another browser, they want to change the world. Just like Jesus.
Source: http://snurl.com/3m4ye [books_google_com]
09.01.08
Traumatic first day
Today was the day Leo, 10 months’ old, paid his first visit to the nursery.
Here in Spain, statutory maternity leave only lasts four months. After that it’s unpaid. I won’t get into how dreadful a policy I believe that to be.
My wife and I decided that, with Leo, we could afford for mummy to stay off work until the start of the new academic year - she’s a teacher. Her career is important to her (as mine is to me) so there was always going to be a trade off. This morning I took the bitter pill and dropped him off at the nursery.
He didn’t cry, which was a blessing, but when I picked him up two hours later his little face told me that he hadn’t appreciated it. He seems to have forgiven me, but then there’s tomorrow. The modern world gives babies a hard time.
08.27.08
Fake follows
I haven’t yet tried friendfeed (perhaps a web 2.0 many) but I’m now planning on starting an account with as many fake follows as I can muster.
The “Blog and Tweet” strategy
After years as a social media doubting Thomas, I’m starting to get the fun of them. I’ve had a delicious account (http://delicious.com/elguiri) and a LinkedIn account (http://www.linkedin.com/in/AKHall) for a while, but I’ve done little with them. Aren’t these things for kiddies?
Recently I’ve become a convert to one of the most infantile - twitter (http://twitter.com/elguiri) and find myself playing on facebook (http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=683955730) for more time than I’d care to admit. Most of all, I like the interaction between twitter, facebook and blogs.
Today I noticed how someone who’s living depends on being read and recognised - Danny Sullivan - moves new pieces of research on his blog, by posting it on twitter.
Danny has an impressive 4,500 followers on twitter. As many of those people may not follow his blog every day or take an RSS feeds, Danny can push his bigger stories this way and generate buzz, especially when retweets ripple through the blogging and tweeting community.
There used to exist a method of getting web pages spidered more efficiently called “blog and ping”. I think “blog and tweet” will have a longer shelf life.
And there’s even a plug in to combine the two: Twitter Tools
TechTags Plugin [ twitter | blogging | danny sullivan | wordpress plugins ]
05.29.07
Sidebar Widgets
I’ve been mucking around with sidebar widgets. They look great in principal, but I had them disperse my content all over the page and then, when I tried to correct, give me a PHP error.
Ho humm. Time to start again.
TechTags Plugin [ php | wordpress | sidebar | widgets | plugins ]
04.27.07
10 Reasons Why It’s Better to be Mechanic than a Lawyer
We’ve all heard the one about difference between a dead rat and a dead lawyer in the middle of the highway. No? There are skid marks in front of the rat.
There’s little doubt that mechanics beat lawyers hands down in the popularity stakes. On the other hand, there are few mechanics that earn more than a lawyer. So is it better to be a mechanic or a lawyer? A truck fixer or an ambulance chaser? We believe the former and here’s why:
- The Pirelli calendar is appropriate decorative artwork for your workplace.
- You don’t have to pretend to like sushi.
- Spilling soup down your front will not cost you $150 in Hermés.
- The corporate ladder is not something found in the Snap-on catalog.
- You will never feel the need to order sparkling water in a bar.
- Of all the things you thought about Anna Nicole Smith, having her as a client was not one of them.
- Georgio Armani Collezioni 3 button suit $900. Blue Sears Coverall $34.99
- Belching loudly in front of your boss is not likely to have any long term effect on your career prospects.
- Until proven otherwise, no one assumes you’re a lying, thieving SOB.
- You’re colleagues names are Nick, Joe and Mani. Not Wienburger, Cirrincione and Greengrass.Thanks to Mechanic Schools
02.22.07
New scooter
How times change. I used to be a fan of nasty Japanese sportsbikes. The day before yesterday I took delivery of a new Yamaha X-Max 250. It’s sweet, and my gym stuff and a helmet fit under the seat. Perfect for buzzing around Madrid. Here’s an X-Max photo. (Mine’s yellow.)
02.13.07
No grand slam for Ireland again
The 2007 Six Nations has had me - again - hoping for the unlikey - an Irish Grand Slam. Surely, the team that had back to back victories over Australia and South Africa could handle France. Well, no they couldn’t.
The one thing the Irish are world champions at is tragedy. They look like they’re going to do it, then fail heroically. Mind you, if I’m honest, there was nothing heroic in the missed tackles that gave France a try one minute to time, just complacency. Two minutes earlier, when Ireland didn’t believe the game was in their hands, that try would have been impossible.
Oh well. As long as they beat England, all is forgiven.
Enough Snow
Well, it turned out there was enough snow for some good skiing. I opted for skis over snowboard because of ice and, if I’m being honest, diminshed flexibility - also known as no longer being a spring chicken. Still, having not skied for five years I discovered it’s like riding a bicycle. After a nervous morning, the turns were loosening up, and thanks to my recent gym fad, I stayed the distance. By the end, I was getting back to old form. Now I want to go again.
Morzine is a good resort. The Morzine pistes themselves lacked snow, but with a fast cable car to the higher, purpose-built Avoriaz and, from there, connections to the big Portes du Soleil ski area, there’s no shortage of places to go.
01.23.07
No snow
So, I’m off skiing to Morzine in France this Thursday and, although the forecast is improving, the conditions don’t look good. There was some snow before Christmas but very little since. The village and lower slopes are green and there has been a lot of rain. While I’m reluctant to believe that every bout of freak weather is attributable to global warming, there seem to be many odd things going on. I hope that now the proper winter is going to begin.
01.11.07
Wonderful Pau Gasol
Here is something rather cheering. I’ve never been a huge fan of basketball, believing as a friend of mine once said that, “only the Americans could have invented a sport where a goal is scored every ten seconds.” Still, if it’s on, and I have nothing pressing, I’ll watch it.
Last night was one of those nights - baby in bed, wife out with friends, too tired to do any of the necessary DIY in my house - that is perfect for watching something without having to explain why I’m watching it. The something was Grizzlies vs Lakers. I understand the Grizzlies have been having a torid time recently, not least because one of their key men, Pau Gasol has been injured with a fractured foot. Well, last night they stuffed the Lakers.
Here in Spain, Pau is a real hero. Local boy makes big time in star-filled NBA. What’s more, he seems a nice guy. He’s polite, well-spoken and unassuming. When you have to listen daily to interviews with idiot football prima donnas, this is refreshing.
Last night, he may have been flattered by a poor Lakers defence, but I thought he was magnificent. Fast, cunning and powerful. He seemed so fully in tune with his team and was reading the game so splendidly he had me bewitched. The beard is good too.
