[caption id="attachment_141" align="alignright" width="731" caption="Blog Stats from Google Reader"]
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Oh, perhaps if I wrote more my own blog stats on Google Reader would look far more impressive!
Sick.
Sick, sick, sick. I hate being sick. Even when it happens mid-week and you get a day or two off work, it still doesn’t make up for it. All it means is that you mope around the house all day feeling a bit sorry for yourself, and then when you get back to work, you’ve got to catch up on twice as many emails and go from there! If only it were a clean slate.
I have been sick these last couple of days; I left work early on Tuesday and did not make it in today. I’ve been feeling better this evening and I think I’ll probably be alright to go back in tomorrow, with a tickle in my throat and still feeling a bit rubbish, I will put my headphones on when I start and take them off only for lunch and when stepping away from my desk. I’ll try!
Hooray!
After a short break, my blog and most of the rest of my website is back. It didn’t go away due to any kind of failure or anything like that — actually, it was mostly just laziness. But today it is restored and so if there is anybody out there who actually reads it, please post a comment so I know who you are 
I’d like to hear from you.
Thanks!
It appears there is no law governing the use of direct SMS marketing here in the UK, only “regulations.” Well, regulations be damned. Both Lindsay and I received direct marketing messages today from a company called “Utext”. I have never heard of this company and so they should not be texting me.
Regulations are usually very limited in their effectiveness, as they do not break the law and the enforcers of regulations do not have as much power.
Here in the UK you are entitled to opt-out of all unsolicited marketing calls to your mobile phone by putting yourself on the Telephone Preference Service but as far as I know, this only covers calls.
When it comes to text messages, the email below outlines the regulations and it specifically states that a prior relationship must already exist between the business and the recipient. Considering Lindsay and I received our SPAM SMS’s within mere minutes of one another, it is clear the company was using a bulk SMS delivery service to SPAM their unwanted services.
The UK newspapers have recently been discussing a controversial company by the name of 118 800 who claim that you can gain access to their directory of mobile telephone numbers for any purpose and that you can use this service to obtain the name and number of any mobile user for only £1. Apparently all of this information has been obtained from marketing lists and the like. Yes, I have so much trust for these companies and their use of my personal information. Sarcasm mode off.
So with regard to my dealings with Utext, I have sent this email along and I will see whether or not they are willing to respond. I don’t hold out much hope but sometimes companies like this are just unaware that they are doing the wrong thing. (Did I say Sarcasm mode off?) I did not know my rights until I researched this this evening, and I think it pays to make the effort to badger these companies directly who use these kinds of methods, whether they are in the right or the wrong, so that people like them know that people like us won’t stand for it. It’s also a massive time-waster for them having to deal with the likes of us, and as I see it, they’ve already wasted my time enough today so it’s comeuppance!
(Here’s a trick for the willing: Next time a company you don’t like sends you advertising material in the post with a reply-paid envelope, fill it up with junk mail, seal it, and post it back. They have to pay for the postage on the reply and waste their own time and effort processing it. It seems only fair — an eye for an eye.)
My email follows:
To: help@utext.tv
Subject: Unsolicited Commercial SMS
Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2009 23:20:31 +0100
Hello
Today I received a marketing SMS from your company from the number 85066 advertising a product called Utext to my number, (removed).
This method of marketing is in breach of the UK Directive on Privacy and Electronic Communications(1), which is effective October 2003. The directive states that such SMS advertising (covered under the title of "electronic mail"(2)) should not be sent to any consumer unless the following three conditions are met (from the consumer's viewpoint):
- The marketer has obtained your contact details via a sale or sale negotiation.
- The text messages concern similar products or services offered by the business.
- You were allowed an opportunity to refuse the SMS marketing when your contact details were obtained and, if you didn't refuse, then you were offered an easy way to opt out in any future communication.
As I do not know your company and have never dealt with you before to my knowledge, could you please explain how each of these three criteria above apply to me and my number and assure me that you are operating within the rules.
I await your reply,
Adam Smith
(1) The Directive on Privacy and Electronic Communications can be found here: http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2003/20032426.htm
(2) SMS is covered under the guise of e-mail as electronic mail (see: http://www.the-dma.org/international/articles/UKElectronicprivacyreg.PDF page 2).
Sorry non-geek readers, but I am compelled to write a geeky post. Now that the weather has improved I shall be out and hopefully post a bit more about my days!
I use Safari 4.0 Beta on my Mac, and I’ve been using three useful JavaScript Bookmarks (though one more than the others.) So in order of preference, here are three interesting bookmarks that you should consider adding to your own Bookmarks toolbar. They’re similar in effect to GreaseMonkey scripts but suit me better because they apply to any page and can be clicked on at your preference.
1. Readability
Readability is a script that transforms a cluttered web page into something actually readable. You’ll know what I’m talking about when you visit a news service that has a thousand ads, side bars, menus and all sorts of other links cluttering your screen, when all you really want to read is the main content. Just like the old Internet!
In steps Readability. In one magic click of a button (or menu-item, depending on your way of looking at it) your page is transformed; the clutter is gone and all that remains is the main article you wanted to read in the first place. If you want to go back to the original page, just click reload.
Readability is customisable so the pages you choose can be output to a few different styles of your preference.
Here’s a before-and-after shot as one example of an article I clicked on today:
And after:
The transformation is very cool! You can go to the Readability website here, and there are links and instructions on how to add it to your browser.
2. Google Translate on-the-fly
Here’s all it is:
javascript:void(location.href='http://translate.google.com/translate?u='+location.href)
and this script will pipe your page through Google Translate as quick as that!
Bookmark it here. You probably won’t use it too often unless you visit any foreign websites, but on the occasions that you do you’ll be glad you’ve got your quick and easy link! Do you need some news in French?
3. Subscribe…
A little superfluous considering most modern browsers auto-detect RSS, but it can’t hurt, but this little script finds any RSS Feed within a page and takes you to it in Google Reader. Unless you’re using a third party RSS utility like Reader Notifier (also quite useful) then this will be of some use.
Here’s the code:
javascript:var%20b=document.body;
var%20GR________bookmarklet_domain='http://www.google.com';if(b&&!document.xmlVersion){void(z=document.createElement('script'));
void(z.src='http://www.google.com/reader/ui/subscribe-bookmarklet.js');
void(b.appendChild(z));
}else{location='http://www.google.com/reader/view/feed/'+encodeURIComponent(location.href)}
And a bookmarkable link.
I hope you enjoyed this little venture and I hope you can take away at least something useful! If you have any other ideas or suggestions feel free to comment and tell everyone. If I’ve helped anyone by posting this information then please comment and let me know!
And finally… go and check out Cool Iris. Yes, it does seem to be “professional software” but for the moment it’s apparently free. I usually don’t bend for these sorts of plugin things but I tried this one and it really is quite good. It’s a full-screen interactive media plugin for your browser and is extremely useful for Google Images, Flickr, sometimes Facebook and probably several other media sites. It’s pretty snazzy. Check the website out and you’ll see what I mean.
Before I start, “STEVE JOBS JUST DIED” was the first message posted to the hijacked macrumorslive.com feed, and while it was funny for a few minutes, I soon got very annoyed at the sheer idiocy of the hijackers. This particular feed is, usually, the best one to follow, so it was a shame that it quickly became worthless.
The surprises from Apple this year were not that exciting. New iWork stuff including iwork.com for online office work, which seems to be a big thing lately. Apple, Microsoft and Google are all doing it. It may be interesting to see what comes of that but Apple’s online services have been of very little interest to me so far, considering how little Mobile Me does for me at the moment.
iLife ‘09 — about the only useful part of this package is iPhoto, if you even use it. The main problem with iLife is that you need to buy it as a whole package, even if you don’t want iMovie, iWeb and GarageBand. And I don’t. I’ve used iMovie before, for a while, but that was in my YouTube hey day.
Until recently I have been keeping my photos in a directory structure on my computer (backed up of course) and not used any particular software to manage it. Even more recently I was toying with Aperture. Now the Keynote came out with all of these cool-sounding features in iPhoto that I WANT!
A library that allows you to organise by event/place, facial recognition that will find faces and let you tag who they are, then intelligently guess who it thinks faces belong to in your other photos. But not only that, there is Flickr and Facebook integration which means that if anyone tags anyone else in your photo, that tag is instantly downloaded and merged into your library. I’ve often found having your own private meta-data that isn’t compatible with other systems most annoying!
I’m quite interested in this facial recognition stuff, and I really want to see what it’s all about.
Geotagging - again, totally cool and being used more and more. I’m eager to play with iPhoto ‘09. Sadly, Apple does not offer a trial version if iLife, so I’ll be waiting to play with it by some other means, and hopefully these features make it to Aperture quickly!
On other notes, the MacBook Pro 17″ with the new unibody is not much of a surprise, not not of great interest to me because I don’t use the 17″. No news on iPhone, and some stuff about iTunes store, which I don’t use very much for music at the moment. At least there’s a general price reduction on music and it’s now DRM free. Yay!
So Apple won’t be at the next one, so what does that mean for next year?
And here’s what you don’t do if you don’t want your live feed to get hijacked during the MacWorld Keynote…
I am looking forward to it this year, and one rumour out there is that Apple will be releasing some sort of home server device. If they do, I will be pleased, as I’ve been looking for something good for a long time now and there’s not very much out there. I will be concerned if it’s over-priced though, because Apple products often are. I just want something that lets me insert many disks, choose a RAID type and set up shares and permissions. Ideally something that let you start off with a few disks and add more in to increase the RAID set over time would be ideal. I will just wait and see.
The MacWorld Expo 2009 is between January 5-9 this year, so there’s not long to wait!
Finally, what is the http://www.macworldexpo.com/ website doing running Microsoft’s IIS?
Our household’s Apple product collection seems to be increasing, though some are becoming redundant now.
2x Apple iPhone 2G 8GB
1x Apple iPhone 3G 8GB
1x Apple iPhone 3G 16GB
1x 64 (I think?) GB iPod Classic
1x iPod Shuffle
1x MacBook Pro (2007 series)
1x MacBook Black (2007 series)
1x Mac Mini
1x 1TB Time Machine + Airport
1x Airport Base Station
1x Bluetooth Mighty Mouse
1x Bluetooth Keyboard
I think that’s it, anyway!
Happy New Year for 2009 to everyone!
My 2008 finished off with a 5-year work permit which I am proud to say will allow me to remain in the UK for pretty-much as long as I want. That’s awesome. I’ve never said this country is the place that I’ll spend the rest of my life but it’s where I want to be right now, so I might as well stay here for a few years yet. There’s so much to see out there!
Lindsay and I are lucky to have a great place that we rent at a good price. Although the financial crisis is hitting people hard, we will be OK. Lindsay has become redundant at his work with many other people but I know him and it won’t take him long to find more work, even in these so called difficult times.
The final 48 hours of my 2008 were quite frustrating, as I went home from work on Tuesday feeling sketchy and ended up waking up on New Years Eve with full-on flu symptoms. Last night I powered on however, and went out to dinner with Nick, Bec and Lindsay, then drove up to Hamstead Heath to see the fireworks display from atop the hill. Cold as it was, we didn’t stay long. I did see some pictures of the London NYE Fireworks display and it was quite spectacular. It would have been fantastic to see it from Southbank but it just gets so, so busy down there. And last night it got to about -3 degrees C, so pretty cold.
As New Years rang in I ended went home and went to bed feeling pretty terrible. I’ve woken up this morning feeling much better and should be over it all in a day or two. Thankfully!
Wishing all my friends and family and any stray readers a prosperous 2009! Happy New Year.
I started writing this blog entry quite a long time ago. Many, many months in fact, but I never fleshed it out. I wanted to publish this one because the Transport Museum was cool, and so are these links that I just wanted to share.
I love the map. Maps are cool.
Cool stuff:
Interactive map of the Tube problems
http://journeyplanner.tfl.gov.uk/im/RD-T.html
London Underground Forecast map for 2010:
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/resources/corporate/media/pressimages/rez-high/h-tube-map-2010.jpg
London Underground Forecast for 2016:
http://www.london.gov.uk/mayor/transport/docs/transportmap2016.pdf [ This link has disappeared! ]
Lindsay and I visited the London Transport Museum on the weekend. It’s fairly swishy and modern, and has several old trains and buses, but the main drawback for me was that there were too many kids (it was a Sunday) and that there weren’t enough older tube stock that you could explore, which would have been cool. You didn’t get a chance to see any of the current stock up close either, and I would have enjoyed seeing a proper drivers cabin! I thought that the museum would be cooler if it were further out in the ‘burbs, so that they could fit more in.
There was a fair bit of information about the future of the tube and a really interesting map of the tube as it was over a hundred years ago, and it showed how the map changed as the lines grew and rearranged in a slide show. I asked them for a copy of it but they said I couldn’t have it!
The shop offered so many different books about the tube, buses, trains, tracks, rail stock, history and so forth — many more than I ever thought would have been published. This country really, really is full of rail enthusiasts.
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