the moving finger
writes and having written moves on
Writer. Student. Knitter. Technophile.
And a bunch of other things
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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWmivumLLL]
Made me laugh
And here's the link in case the movie doesn't load
Taming the leopards
I have a very nice new Macbook which I use at work - through a combination of vmware and entourage. I've used it every day for about a year and never had any problems with it. In fact most of my work colleagues find my smugness about the stability and power of my machine, compared to their cruddy pcs somewhat irritating.
Well, they sort of got their revenge. I upgraded to Snow Leopard and I got complacent, I didn't do all the general housekeeping things that are good practice when upgrading MacOSx. with the inevitable result. The once beautifully stable machine crashed roughly every 2-3 hours. (often enough to be irritating, but not so often it was unworkable).
I tried a couple of repair type things to see if I could fix it without having to rebuild - but to no avail.
So, yesterday I rebuilt the machine.
I'm back to being super smug about how much better the Mac is - I don't know anyone who has rebuilt a PC and within a matter of hours has a fully functioning machine with all the applications you use regularly installed and working, networking connected, and all the data back where it belong. It was a seriously easy and stress free process. (thank you Time Machine)
On the whole, I'd rather have not had to do the rebuild - but it wasn't as bad as I'd feared, and it seems to have done the trick.
Moving on...
I've been at my current job for about 2 and half years now. I'm not sure if I've ever blogged in detail about what I do here - but basically, I write ASX announcements, pretty-up investor presentations and provide general communications support to a boutique investor relations firm called Radar.
It's been an interesting time, not without its moments of irritation, and its moments of delight, but recently I'd started to lose my enthusiam for the job.
(it turns out there's only so many times you can write something that says "I know we said we'd be profitable by now, but we're not, it's not our fault and please will you give us more money." Sadly it's turned out for some of our former clients there's only so many times the market will say "OK - here's some more cash.")
Anyway - I've just been offered and accepted, a new job at a company called Nuix, where I'll be their new Marketing Manager. They're a small software developer who make some seriously cool e-discovery software. It's a great product, a great team, and the business is heading into a seriously exciting growth phase.
I'm enormously excited about starting there. So fingers crossed it works out even half as well as I'm hoping.
We're at war?
The group Anonymous has declared war on the the Australian Government over their internet censorship plans.
As a future lawyer I completely condemn any and all illegal activity that may be perpetrated as part of this operation.
As a former anarchist/direct action campaigner... well... it makes me happy.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEe7qhlFNs4]
New Media, Marketing and Public Relations
Where I work we have a bit of a tendency to chase new shiny things - it's a common failing in the world of consultancies/pr/marketing types - we just have very short attention spans.
Anyway as the resident über-geek it usually falls to me to explain why corporate blogs/email marketing campaigns/digital goat sharing* still need us to create good content and do our jobs properly. Fancy technology can't make a shit product/company or campaign any better.
The latest one is twitter - we have clients who want to use twitter to announce they've announced something.
(These are the same companies who won't get rss working on their sites because it's 'complicated')
So, since I'm now looking at how we can effectively leverage Twitter for our clients I was really glad to come across this website which really gives some great advice about using Twitter for marketing and PR.
http://www.howtousetwitterformarketingandpr.com/
You should really check it out if you're considering taking your company or brand onto Twitter.
All a -twitter
A recent study by some mob called "Pear Analytics" has determined(1) that roughly 40% of twitter traffic is "pointless babble"
Unsurprisingly, they have something to sell you based on this startling factoid(2). Gotta love these new "online social marketing experts".
I'm not going to respond because as always Stephen Fry says it best.
(1) the study is really shonky - I'd have been embarrassed to hand it in as an undergraduate. Stephen Dann has the best analysis - and if you read through the comments you can find one of the researchers trying to defend it, which is pretty funny.
(2) a made up fact - commonly believed to be true because it sounds plausible.
God I hate Microsoft...
I'm working on a client website.
They've agreed to give me direct access to their CMS <Good>
Their CMS is Microsoft Content Management Server <Bad>
Microsoft stopped supporting CMS years ago <Worse>
They no longer provide any documentation on how the damn thing works <Worser>
Oh yeah, and although it "works over the internet so you only need a web browser to use it" it relies entirely on ActiveX controls that only function in Internet Explorer. Which means I (a Mac) have to run a virtual machine to run IE just to deal with this ancient crap product.
I freakin hate Microsoft.
Sony Reader information
Over at Mobileread we've been talking about how often we get asked about our Sony Readers. I've raved about mine here before, so as you'll know, I love it, and I'm more than happy to talk about it at length.
But after a while it can get a little tedious repeating the same information, and worse, if the person I'm talking to is seriously interested they have to remember it if they want to get one themselves.
So, I printed up some of those Avery perforated business cards with the most important details to be able to give to people who ask about the reader. My cards say...
Sony Reader PRS 505 (www.sonystyle.com for specs and details) Can purchase online through ebay or B&H photo video NY (www.bhphotovideo.com) or in person in the US and Europe Best software Calibre (calibre.kovidgoyal.net) Best source of ebooks www.fictionwise.com and www.gutenberg.org (and tons of others) Best source of additional information about this and other ebook readers www.mobileread.com And it is the best gadget I have ever owned.I mentioned this on Mobileread and some bright spark suggested turning them into a shareable Google doc so anyone else who wanted to print them out could. So I did - and it's here.
Fantastic review of two new blackberries and a G1
Stephen Fry, as well as being a noted actor, writer and raconteur is a bona fide gadget freak (Seriously - he made a film celebrating 25 years of GNU Happy Birthday to GNU)
He has recently reviewed the Blackberry Bold and Storm, and the GI It's a fantastic review describing the Storm's keyboard thusly
Watching someone writing an email on a Storm is like watching an antelope trying to open a packet of cigarettes.aand anyone who has every travelled with more than one electronic device with empathise with the photo of his hotel room desk. Do yourself a favour - Read it
Surely technology would never hurt one of its own kind...
Well - it did...
A couple of weeks ago I applied for a job at the same place a friend of mine works. Didn't hear anything - no big deal.
Then today I'm involved in an email conversation with the friend - we're trying to sort out a lunch date for later in the week.
My phone rings "XXX work" says the phone. I think "Good call XXX we'll sort this out faster by phone than email. So I pick up the phone and sing merrily "Ye-es?"
A *very* confused voice says "Umm - can I speak to Lindsay please?"
That's right - it was a total stranger calling to invite me to an interview.
I guess it could have been worse. But I'm seriously considering deleting the friend's work number so it can't happen again
