Ross Scrivener - Blog

Lessons Learned in 2012

Thu, 27 Dec 12 23:02:37 +0000

If anything for me, 2012 was a year of clarity. A year of realisation that life is short, and that decisions should be conscious. I've come to some conclusions on matters that have troubled me for a long time, maybe longer. Everyone struggles with the "where is my life going" question from time to time. It's not easy to know what you are doing with your life, but I have come to believe that my life may as well be an enjoyable one, and in order to enjoy it I need this thing called fulfilment (and set out a path to get there). This year I openly agreed with friends and critics who said I think about things too much, but I still maintain that sometimes in life, things need to be thought about. In 2012 I realised that too many important decisions in my life were made by chance, I hadn't consciously made those decisions and maybe they weren't the best thing for me. I realised that the path of my life can be determined by me, and if I don't like something I can change it. Here are a few selected moments, realisations and quotes that have really struck a chord with me in 2012. They may be a little out of context here, but each one holds a special feeling and insight for me. I hope they don't make sense or leave a coherent picture, they are disparate in my mind too. I hope they mean something different to you than they do for me. Achieving things Life gives you what you settle for. If you don't know what you want, you will never get it. "All the evidence shows that people who know what they want are more likely to get what they want." "If you have the destination in sight you'll be more likely to arrive at it." "If you want something you've never had before, you'll need to do something you've never done before in order to get it." The only way to discover whether you can have what you want is to pursue it. You can't discover this through imagination or thinking about it. You have to act. You can learn to do anything if it is framed in the right way, drawing, writing, music, there are simple formulas and building blocks for each. Every passing minute is another chance to turn it all around. Whatever you do, you'll be. There is no certainty, only opportunity. Realisations Feeling appreciated is an amazing feeling. Helping people achieve something they wanted to made me feel proud. You get from life what you put in to life. We strive for glory and recognition, but that is only a distraction, if you have a talent, it is your duty to the world to share it and help people. Thoughts follow action - act happy and you will be happy, act confident and you will be confident. Fake it until you become it. Career, Calling, Life Goals We need something to work towards, a personal mission statement, a compass, something we can ask of ourselves "is this helping my long term goals?" Do the absolute best you can for people, no lies, no trickery. It will pay dividends much greater in the long term. "Start with what is right rather than what is acceptable." - Franz Kafka "In business as in life, all that matters is that you do something positive." - Richard Branson. Be the best at what you do, and if you can't be the best at it, get more niche, go deeper into the subject until you get to a point nowhere else has been, then you will be creating work of value. Gaming the system is never the goal, the goal is the goal. Happiness Happiness isn't a destination, it's the journey. "Skiing - The goal isn't to get to the bottom of the hill, it's to have a load of good runs before the sun goes down." - Seth Godin Do not allow your happiness to be dictated by things out of your control The little things, there's nothing bigger. If you always try to get better and strive for progress rather than perfection, you stand a much better chance at being happy and satisfied with your life.

Noteworthy points from 2012 Tweetprose - Twitter (almost) wrote a novel Langtons Ants in Javascript Cosmic Clocks & Some Interplanetary Holiday Advice ipHack - Attended Ipswich's first hack day. Road trip across California. Danced like a complete tool in front of people I respect. Slit Scan Camera in HTML5 365 Project hit 3 million photos (currently 3.6) Developed and tested 4 successful automated Forex trading systems. Received a thank you card for helping someone, felt special. Chose a different path. Visited Google HQ in California for the annual Analytics Partner Summit. Helped 6 people pass their GAIQ exams - felt proud. November "Employee Of The Month" at HP Group, people said nice things about me. Felt special. Wrote 2 (very) short stories, unpublished.

A Slit Scan Camera in HTML5

Sun, 21 Oct 12 09:10:35 +0000

A few days ago I stumbled upon the Slit Scan Camera. You will probably recognise it's odd effect from the "photo-finish" photos they take at the olympics and horse racing, in these images peoples limbs seem to be distorted and it doesn't look like the actual place the shot was taken. These photographs are in fact records of time, rather than a record of space, as in a normal photograph. The camera works by taking many exposures (like a film) but of only one very small area of space (a vertical line 1 pixel wide), it then moves the "film" along a little and records the same point in space on the line next to it, eventually over time you will build up a picture of one small area of space over time. So this weekend I set about recreating a slit scan camera using the magic of your web browser and your standard webcam. The demo below will create a photo where the left hand side of the image is recorded a few seconds before the right hand side, unlike in a normal photograph where the entire image is captured at once.

Give it a go by visiting the html5 slit scan camera page.

The technology behind this is fairly cutting edge so you will need Google Chrome to get it working. A big thanks to Jay Mark Johnson for the inspiration, check out his amazing slit scan photographs. If you liked this post please check out my other projects.

Update This project has just been featured in Google's Chrome Experiments. View it here

Some Things Are Best Kept Private

Wed, 26 Sep 12 18:50:54 +0000

Yes, the internet lets you broadcast every thought. But some things, you just shouldn't share. Shhh.

Marketing

Wed, 01 Aug 12 08:34:13 +0000

For the millionth time - screw "innovation" and do what works. Conversion Rate Optimisation Test -> Improve -> Repeat Connect with your audience Tell a story that resonates with a specific group of people. What story do you tell? Say interesting stuff Great content on your website -> Tell people about it (email newsletter / social) -> Build audience & trust -> Incentivise that audience -> Win! It's not that difficult, but there are no shortcuts.

Cosmic Clocks & Some Interplanetary Holiday Advice

Sat, 31 Mar 12 18:37:17 +0000

With interplanetary holidays right around the corner I thought I should do my bit and address one of the key issues everybody is talking about... How does a clock behave on Neptune?* You may wonder why it really matters, but as the relative length of a day changes depending on the planet you're on, you could end up with quite a different holiday to what you thought you were getting. For example an all inclusive 7 day break on Venus would be roughly 812 Earth-days long, that's quite a holiday! It's even longer if you head off to Mercury (~1,232 days), but if relaxing on the surface of a desolate planet doesn't sound like much fun to you, then Saturn may be your best bet, a 7 day break on Saturn would last just 2.8 depressing Earth days. Now back to the question in hand (the one about clocks), I've built a little visualisation to help us all understand a little better.**

Check it out here. Cosmic Clocks. (give it a few minutes to watch them drift)

Aren't you glad we've sorted that out? You can now relax with one less thing to worry about as you blast off in to space.

Some Trivia

1) I'm well aware the movement of a standard Earth clock would not change if you just took it to another planet, but my clocks are normalised so that all days on other planets would also be comprised of 24 hours or 86,400 seconds, but obviously an hour or a second would be differing periods of time on other planets. (time is confusing). 2) The clocks displayed are localised to whatever time you start viewing them, this clearly is not the actual time on each of those other planets, as other planets don't really have a concept of timezones (that I care about, maybe we should resolve that in the next blog post?). The clocks will start to drift by differing amounts the longer you leave the page open. 3) If the clocks aren't doing anything then you should probably upgrade your web browser. Note that Mercury, Venus and Mars look pretty much static, but they aren't, just very very slow compared to Earth. 4) There's quite a high probability that I don't really know what I'm talking about, so feel free to tell me how ignorant I am about space, time, clocks and pretty much everything else. * I can't go a Mercurian day without being asked this question. ** No promises here

It's what you do, not what you do it with

Mon, 27 Feb 12 21:46:09 +0000

It's all to easy to focus on the programming language, or the advertising medium, or the scale, or a million other things, but I'll bet the only thing that people care about is - what does it do? does it work? is it worth it? A little more time on the creativity, a little less time on the minutiae.

Langton's Ants - in Javascript

Sun, 26 Feb 12 18:03:37 +0000

Many people will have heard of Conway's Game of Life, a 2D simulation based upon a very simple algorithm that shows incredibly complex behaviour. Langton's Ants (wiki) runs along a similar line, however the rules each "Ant" follow are even simpler, and when combined with multiple Ants they create some impressive patterns. Each Ant, represented in my version by a red square obeys only 2 rules... 1) At a black square, turn 90° right, flip the colour of the square, move forward one unit. 2) At a green square, turn 90° left, flip the colour of the square, move forward one unit. These 2 rules on their own will exhibit an identical result each time which. Whilst starting off chaotic, it eventually mutates into a structured "Bridge" as pictured below.

The real amazing part comes when you put 2 or more together, the Ants interact, crossing each others paths and creating a crazy trail. You can even lock 2 or more ants together in a higher-order system that shows some seemingly intelligent behaviour. What I find so amazing about Langton's Ants is there ability to produce organic looking structures from incredibly simple rules, and I think because you can follow 1 Ants progress you have a connection with the actions, unlike Conway's Game of Life where you are slightly disjointed from the sim.

Click here to try it out

Pull out the sidebar for some extra controls, its mesmerising to watch.

The Techy Bit

This example is made using Javascript and the Canvas API, pretty simple stuff, you can view source to steal the code should you wish, it's slightly over complicated because I wanted to add the control panel, a lot of it can be stripped down. It's topping out at about 90fps on my machine. Your results may vary, this wasn't really a test of speed because it pretty quickly results in a huge mess of pixels anyway. Just gaze in wonder at the pretty patterns such simple rules bring about.

Just noticed that some old-school browsers don't support some of the features used in this demo, like Range controls and Canvas - try it in Google Chrome / Safari.

Answering the phone with really long scripts

Wed, 22 Feb 12 16:33:47 +0000

“Good afternoon you're through to XYZ company the best ABC service in your area, this is Jessica speaking how can I help you today?” If it takes you longer to answer the phone than it takes to answer the persons query, you're doing it wrong. Personally I'm fond of the simple, “XYZ Company, Ross speaking&rdquo (smile too, you can tell if someone is smiling)

What stops me from being more creative?

Mon, 20 Feb 12 16:47:26 +0000

- "modern" distractions, tv, twitter - motivation - marketing - lack of people to share with - lack of positive reinforcement - lack of space / materials - cost, can't afford to do expensive stuff as i'll never make my money back, is this just an expensive hobby? - addressable market - people don't have a "need" for creative stuff, but people don't "need" an iPod, they desire it - exposure - how do i find the people that want what i'm selling, etsy is a good place for selling, difficult to build a brand though - skills, how do i *easily* learn to sculpt / paint / whatever? - mastery of required skills, surely only the best of the best at a skill can make good money? is there a market for averagely skilled pieces of art? ideas i've had in the past regarding art - enable school-leavers to sell their artwork online - 365project.org does a good job in supporting creativity, the community give lots of good feedback, users that dont participate in the community are far more likely to drop out than those that get support, how can i replicate this in another market?

Twitter (almost) Wrote a Novel

Sun, 19 Feb 12 16:23:02 +0000

TLDR: I tested the Infinite Monkey Theorem using words found on Twitter. They unknowingly reproduced 98% of George Orwell's novel "1984" in 12 hours, and went on to complete 99.8% of the entire book in ~9 days... check out the results.

Lately I've fallen in to that trap of spending way too much time looking at other peoples cool stuff, and not enough time making my own cool stuff. To remedy this I took a journey and delved into the darker side of my brain, and with some force, pulled out one of those random ideas that had been lurking in there for some time. The thing that emerged was to test the classic (and clichéd) Infinite monkey theorem. Which states that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type a given text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare.

The plan

Not being a big fan of Bill, infinite numbers of monkeys, or strictly abiding by the rules, I instead turned my attention to that oh-so-wonderful form of social media, Twitter. Surely the "twitterati" could do a better job of recreating a novel than a bunch of lame monkeys! To test it out I found myself a copy of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four (out of copyright, so don't sue me) and got to work seeing if twitter could reproduce it.

Lets do it!

Using Twitter's search API, and a bit of coding, I extracted all the unique words from the book (~8,985) and set about searching for recent tweets containing that word. 8 hours later and Twitter had kindly found all but ~150 or so of the words, with a few adjustments (spell-checking and splitting hyphenated words) that came down to just 34 missing words. Not bad considering none of the participants were aware of their involvement in the experiment.

I freakin did it! Check out / play with the results

In conclusion

I know this doesn't prove much, but it was a fun experiment anyway, twitter almost reproduced a great piece of fiction, and in fairness to them they had written all the "real" words, and some of the made-up ones too. I know the experiment doesn't exactly prove the Infinity Monkey Theorem, as the words weren't produced in sequence or whatever other "rules" you want to put on a random theory, but I don't really care. Here's to making more random stuff! :-)

Because

Wed, 14 Dec 11 21:17:23 +0000

Don't expect me to do something "because". When our letting agent called me up tonight and informed me that she was being "as fair as she could" and that our rent would have to go up, naturally I asked why? The landlord isn't paying any more than he did in the preceding year, we've been very good tenants and haven't cost them any money, in fact the estate agent couldn't give me a single reason why the price must go up, yet apparently it does. I'm not doing something just because it's the way it has to be done and the way it's always been done, I don't do things "because".

Left Damaged

Wed, 14 Dec 11 11:12:20 +0000

I put a lot of effort in to this, I took a risk and trusted you, followed you down your path, away from the crowd. I thought you were trying to help me. You've let me down, left me stranded; damaged. I wont trust again, like I did with you.

If I Was An Album

Thu, 08 Dec 11 15:17:06 +0000

I'd be either... The Strokes - Is This It The Maccabees - Colour It In Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend

A Deep Connection

Thu, 08 Dec 11 14:51:37 +0000

Connecting individuals together and sharing emotions. In the fear of sounding like a hippy, this is the device I want the most, one that two or more people can join together and each person can feel the collective emotions of the group, whilst simultaneously passing their emotions back in to the group. Could there be any stronger bond than being able to meet a person and have an instant deep connection in to the working of their mind, to get lost in their inner thoughts, to understand their moods and their dreams, This is what I long for, a deep connection.

Different Me's

Sat, 03 Dec 11 14:21:48 +0000

There are at least 10 distinct Ross's that I'm aware of.

Work Ross
Silly Ross
Comfortable Ross
Serious Ross
Single Ross
Infatuated Ross
Sentimental Ross
Ranty Ross
Creative Ross
Open to ideas Ross

Missed Opportunity

Sat, 03 Dec 11 14:19:20 +0000

There's nothing worse than the regret of a missed opportunity. Do it.

Beliefs vs Evidence

Fri, 25 Nov 11 11:53:11 +0000

Science doesn't care if you don't believe it, science doesn't care if you ignore it, go ahead, it doesn't bother science. Ignoring scientific fact because "you feel like it" isn't helping anyone. If you have an opposing view and can't prove it, you're losing the argument, and no matter how much you preach about it, without evidence, nobody cares. Now stop telling us how much you believe something and start showing us the data to back it up.

A Different Approach

Thu, 24 Nov 11 11:48:46 +0000

The internet is built on the foundation of insightful, helpful, thought provoking information, how much of it did you contribute? I know I can do better, make better content, ask better questions, push more boundaries. You probably know the same about yourself. When posting to Twitter or Facebook, take the scientific approach, provide data to back up your claims, give use cases to prove it works and most importantly tell us how it can help everyone else. Then you have half a chance of changing someones opinion, making someone interested, doing better work.

Talk Doesn't Cook Rice

Tue, 22 Nov 11 10:28:02 +0000

Too often we spend too much time talking about doing things and not enough time doing them. When it comes to quitting smoking or losing weight, there are definite ways to do it, they are so simple it seems ridiculous to even think of them as a way to do something. If you want to lose weight, do more exercise, if you want to give up smoking, stop buying cigarettes, if you want to write a diary, sit down and write, every day. Why then do people find it so hard to do these things? Is it lack of will? is it lack of drive or motivation? Is it laziness? Probably. Overcome these and you will succeed, it's easy! If you want to be the person that does things, whether it's quitting smoking or changing the world, just get on with it already! What are you waiting for?

The Paradox Of Choice

Mon, 21 Nov 11 09:51:56 +0000

The Paradox Of Choice has never been more prevalent. In a sentence, it's when having too many choices leads to anxiety and as a result, you do nothing because you are afraid of making the wrong choice. For months I've been meaning to transfer some cash to a higher rate interest bank account. This week I received a letter from Nationwide (Bank), it contained a double sided leaflet spanning 6 pages, I counted through and there were 37 different savings account choices. Needless to say I didn't read all 37 and instead opted to do nothing. They lost a sale right there. Then by chance on Saturday I was on my Lloyds online banking and there was an ad for a Savings account, 2.5% interest, access your money any time, I clicked on it, ticked the T&C button, and I had an account open within 30 seconds. Sure this might not have been the best rate of interest for my money, but it was easy and clear and open. Making choices simpler for people will help them and help you.

Do Great Work

Sat, 19 Nov 11 01:22:57 +0000

The technology industry, that I am a part of, is so hung up on the latest and greatest. The industry focuses on the latest language, the latest fad, we've completely missed the point of the technology itself. The point being to do amazing things, not care about how they are done or in what language they have been constructed, just the pure thing. What are you making? What problem does it solve? Why have you made it? The world literally couldn't care less if you programmed it in the latest fandangled language or used the hippest methodology, they care about one thing, is it amazing? There are only 2 answers, and only one answer people care about.

Stuck in traffic

Fri, 18 Nov 11 11:05:09 +0000

Everyone's been stuck in traffic at some point, whether it's cars on a road or a queue in a shop. Traffic's no good for your mental state, no good for the economy, no good for the planet. How can you reduce the traffic in your life?

The Catalyst

Thu, 17 Nov 11 14:01:32 +0000

I was speaking to someone today that had suggested their business invest in a communal seating area for their office. They cited that a few very successful companies had this arrangement in their offices, and how it turned in to a breeding ground for creative discussions and a friendly atmosphere. The person spoke to their manager and received the response "when we are turning over the cash they are, then we can have a communal area". I think their manager may have cause and effect a little mixed up here. At this other company was it the cash that brought the creative atmosphere? Or was it the creative atmosphere that underpinned the company and helped bring in the cash? When in life something seems a little different, ask yourself, is this the effect of doing something great? or is this the catalyst for doing something great?

Shoot The Hippo - An HTML5 Game

Sun, 02 Oct 11 13:14:35 +0000

Shoot the Hippo is an interactive HTML5 game. Tom Bowden (@TomBowdenCRO) of Shoot The Hippo fame recently asked me if I could create him a simple game for his Conversion Rate Optimisation blog, Shoot The Hippo. After approximately 20 seconds of brainstorming over skype we settled on the idea of shooting Hippos in the head after they pop-up from an onscreen lake. Although the game only took a few hours to actually make, it has proven to be quite a hit in the office.

- The techy bit The game is made using the canvas element, part of the new HTML5 specification which allows 2D graphics to be drawn and controlled through your web browser. This is the first project I've undertaken using canvas. For the first time in a while I really enjoyed making this game, because I wasn't focused on making the best graphics and didn't have to worry about how the code would scale or if it was abstracted enough or if it could be reused, I just got on with creating something a bit fun and not worrying about it. This left me to make the game in a few hours and just enjoy the process. I hope to bring you some more small projects like this, too often I try and do something big and get bored / distracted / unmotivated half-way. This project had a real focus and no expectations which made it a fun weekend project.

Recycled Cardboard Lamp

Sun, 02 Oct 11 13:12:50 +0000

Recently I've been attracted to the more eccentric household items, and due to a lack of lamps in our house, and my keen fondness for the table lamp, I decided to design and make my own. I first thought of making my lamp from circles of stacked plywood, finished and polished with the edges on show so you could see the layering effect of the wood. With the limitations of living in a flat firmly in mind, I decided it would be easier for me to model the lamp first out of cardboard, achieving a similar stacked effect without the hassle of buying expensive tools to cut the wood. Once I settled on the idea of using cardboard it actually seemed like a better idea than using wood, it's widely available as a waste material from packaging, meaning it's basically free and 100% recycled. It would also be recyclable once I get bored of looking at it.

I cut each individual layer of the base from corrugated cardboard I sourced from the packaging of some patio furniture. I took each layer and glued them together using PVA, I then drilled a hole through the centre of the whole structure for threading the cable for the lamp fitting (also recycled). I cut a larger hole at the top of the structure to wedge the fitting in. - The Shade The lampshade again is made from recycled card. I was a bit lost for inspiration on what to do with the shade, having such an attractive base I think the basic square shade lets it down. I have a few ideas for different shades that mainly include much more wrist-aching knife-work for cutting it out. I will post an update when I get this done. All in all the lamp is almost 100% recycled, the only thing I purchased was a £4 energy saving lamp, as I didn't want to use the inefficient lamp that came with the fitting.

365 Project Update

Fri, 30 Sep 11 13:13:57 +0000

As many of you know I started doing the 365 Project way back in 2006. It started with the intention of taking more photos and documenting my life, whilst also as a way of improving my photography as I had been repeatedly told my photos were sub-standard. This project ended up with me spending more than 4 years documenting my life. I have now finally stopped for a break. Not without leaving a legacy behind at least...

365project.org is a site I started to help other people with their journey of documenting their lives. The site continues to grow, and now has over 70,000 members, with about 15,000 currently pursuing their projects. The website has really changed my perspective on the project. Some people take it so seriously and take the most amazing photos everyday, whereas others are doing it just to improve and keep a diary of their lives. The weekly themes on the site continue to amaze me every week. Thankfully the site has a great community that supports the growth (and costs) involved in running a site with over 2 million uploaded photos.I hope to continue to nurture it into the future.

365 Project at Dorkbot

Fri, 30 Sep 11 13:11:26 +0000

I was fortunate enough to be asked by Dave Chatting to speak at the East Anglia based Dorkbot event back in November 2010. Dorkbot is a worldwide collection of people that arrange local talks about people doing weird things with electricity. Dave had asked me to talk about the work I do on the 365 Project, my photography based daily diary project, that at the time over 20,000 people were using (now close to 70,000) The Dorkbot event was held at the CSV Media Clubhouse in Ipswich, where over 50 people attended. I did a brief 20 minute talk about how I started 365 Project and where it is at now. This is my first real experience in talking to a large (ish) group of people, pretty much ever, luckily I did plenty of preparation and many people seemed interested. I was pleased to see that quite a few people had questions at the end, many about the social aspects of the site, many about the technical difficulties the site faces. I've uploaded the slides below, although many of the numbers are out of date now. For more information on the Dorkbot Anglia events see the dorkbot anglia site.

Life-Logging a Retrospective

Thu, 29 Sep 11 15:51:54 +0000

Throughout 3 months at the start of 2009 I thought it might be fun to log many of the day to day routine activities I do in my life. Inspired by Feltron's annual summaries I undertook my own life-logging experiment. The experience was certainly a learning one, it is really difficult to remember how many times you do certain activities, and a simple method of logging is a necessity. Feltron runs his own website where you can run your own life-log Daytum.com Below is a (rather large) info-graphic on what I achieved over the 3 months. Whilst difficult it was certainly rewarding to log all this information on your life, much as I do with the 365 Project. If you are going to undertake a similar experiment, I would definitely say that you shouldn't try and be too granular, make it fit with your daily routine and update regularly throughout the day so you don't end up with a big backlog of information. Whilst the metrics I chose were fairly random, I like the random-ness of how many times I ate sausages. The little things in life are important too!

Time Show by Curiosity Collective

Wed, 28 Sep 11 15:52:15 +0000

The weekend of the 1st - 3rd October 2010 saw the Time Show, held by the Curiosity Collective in St Mary's Church Ipswich. As part of the Curiosity Collective, I exhibited 2 pieces at the Time show, a small art exhibition where all the pieces were in some way directly attributed to the functioning of time. My first piece was a wall of clocks, covered with a layer of clear plastic that people were encouraged to draw their own clock faces on to. Over the weekend all the clocks eventually got drawn on, some more than once, and we saw some very strange creations. My other piece was an interactive screen (that broke, so was automated). It showed recorded images over a 24 hour period from 4 locations around the world. The images were captured from a large network of public webcams and then sped up to play back over roughly 5 minutes. The original intention was to have a control interface where the user could zoom through the photos at their will, however due to a last minute choice of hardware, turned out not to be responsive enough for a good user experience. More information on the exhibits can be found on the Curiosity Collective's summary of the time show.

Just Ship It

Tue, 08 Feb 11 11:41:49 +0000

I've wrote in the past about the benefits of just getting your project done and out there. When I watched the Facebook Live video featuring Laurent Desegur from Zynga it was so refreshing to see a techy inside a real company with real budgets and time constraints saying they bodged it together and shipped it. Most technology talks are about these crazy new programming languages and millions of dollars of investment capital they spent reinventing the wheels in order to make a website about cats load 0.005s quicker. The talk from Laurent however was on how his team at Zynga used HTML5 & Javascript features to make the latest Mafia wars game work on both iPhones and Android devices. Basically Laurent implied they hacked it together using the technology that's already out there in a short time-frame with a small budget, because in the real world, that's how companies make money! Many developers are sitting in this new .com bubble waiting for venture capitalists to give them squillions to develop the latest new thing, when really they should be focusing on making a profitable business, shipping it and getting some revenue in! As Jason Fried said in his recent post... “When it comes to valuation, making money is a real obstacle. Our profitability has been a real drag on our valuation,” said Mr. Fried. “Once you have profits, it’s impossible to just make stuff up. That’s why we’re switching to a ‘freeconomics’ model. We’ll give away everything for free and let the market speculate about how much money we could make if we wanted to make money. That way, the sky’s the limit!” All the technology in the world is useless without a profitable business to keep it going, no speculation, no reinventing the wheel, just get it done and start making some money already! ------------- Update: OK I know Zynga have a reputation for stealing games bah blah, this isn't about that, it's about getting your project done and out of the door with the smallest amount of fuss and cost. You can still innovate, but do it in a place that makes a difference, make a better product, make a useful product.

365 Project Featured on TV

Mon, 24 Jan 11 20:49:27 +0000

BBC Look East were kind enough to feature 365 Project on the evening news last week. View the full video and story over on the 365 Project blog... 365 Project - As Seen On TV

Google Car - Damn I'm Observant

Fri, 15 Jan 10 16:12:55 +0000

Just a quickie... Today Rachel and I were walking around Kings Park in Perth, imagine the scene for a minute, blue skies, birds singing, temperature at 35 degrees plus, then, what's that? out of the corner of my eye I've seen something, something that when standing in a park I wouldn't expect, what could it be? it must be technology related somehow or I would just zone out, yes, I see it now, it's, it's it's a Google car! A google car taking pictures of the causeway, but wait, how could you spot that from all the way up here Ross? I tell you, if any government agencies want me to spy on foreign countries, I think I could do it without leaving my bedroom, just put a new mobile phone or some innovative new technology in that country and my eyes will home in on it. Damn i'm observant! So ladies and gents, here it is, the Google car, in Perth.... and just to prove it wasn't easy to spot, here was the view, un-zoomed....

Travelling - What's Next?

Thu, 12 Nov 09 04:48:09 +0000

So for everybody back home I should probably fill you in on what I'm up to over the next few months. We've been lucky enough to find a nice little apartment in East Perth (pictured above). Rachel has gotten herself a job and is raking in the money working as a receptionist at a printing firm. We're planning to spend Christmas here as we've decided to spend our money doing other things, not to mention that travel over crimbo is about 3x the price it normally is. I'll quickly list our planned itinerary, this takes us up to getting back to the UK next March 1) At the start of February we'll be jetting off to Melbourne for a few nights. 2) From Melbourne we'll be zooming over to Auckland (New Zealand), from there we are planning on Camper-vanning or bussing around both islands for 2-3 weeks before ending up in Christchurch. 3) Christchurch -> Sydney 4) Sydney -> Singapore (just for a stopover) then Singapore -> Mumbai (yep India!) 5) From Mumbai we need to get to Delhi 6) In Delhi we'll be meeting up with a load of other people and a "guide" of sorts who'll be taking us all over the place for the next 3 weeks. 7) Hopefully we'll end up back in Delhi in one piece, from there we have to get a flight back to Mumbai again, then we fly Mumbai to Heathrow on the 22nd March. ..or something along those lines! I think we have about 8 different flights booked at the moment, which brings the total for this year to 13! My carbon footprint is bigger than yours :-p As I mentioned we should be getting home about March 22nd or 23rd. Currently I have no plans for what to do when returning to the UK, I hope I wont be hanging about too long (just a few months), travelling is just too much fun and the UK really sucks.

Posh East Perth Apartment

Tue, 10 Nov 09 09:40:20 +0000

So Rachel and I have given up with the whole house-sitting thing for a while, moving around so much is a bit of a pain now Rachel is working full time. After many hours of searching (mostly by Rachel) we've found this lovely apartment in East Perth (the posh part) about a 3 minute walk from Rachel's office. We're sharing the place with 2 other guys, Adrian from Singapore and Alex from Ireland. We had a load of people over for a BBQ at the weekend, it's good to be meeting new people again. I shot this little video for you to all have a looksy at. It's not very good, I must try harder with these things! and if you dislike moving pictures...

House in Perth

Sun, 09 Aug 09 06:19:37 +0000

Apologies for not updating my blog in aaaaages but I'm too lazy. We're in this house in Perth for about 4 weeks until the house owners come back. We have no idea what we are doing after this. Front view: Rear View: You can check out all my 365 project photos over at http://365project.org/Scrivna

House Sitting in Adelaide

Sat, 08 Aug 09 08:56:19 +0000

Ok so here are a few moments from our time in Adelaide... We spent 2 months looking after Jill and Ians house, we were put in touch with them via Rachels family in Adelaide, we looked after their 2 cats Paws and Cass. After that we stayed with Linda (Rachel's relative) for a week or so. Hector Hector the Herron was a common sight in the back garden scrounging for cat food. Port Noarlunga This is where the river at the end of Jill and Ians garden joins the sea. Fishing This was my first ever fishing trip and the first fish I ever caught Sasha Sasha is Lindas dog, such a cutie! Goodbyes Time to say goodbye to everbody, went out for a nice Vietnamese meal. From me clockwise: Rachel, Linda, Dorris, Jill, Laura, Sally, Ian and Stephen.

Sailing The Whitsundays

Tue, 09 Jun 09 08:48:50 +0000

We arrived in Airlie beach at some unknown hour of the morning, We had a little brekkey then went to check-in for our sail the next day, we were sailing on a Catamaran called Wings, the owner is a total boat nut and just spent AUD $2 million on there newest boat. Wings takes 24 people and 3 crew, there were 23 in our group. The next day we packed up and bought some pink goon before heading to the boat. We met everyone and did the awquad hellos before boarding and getting our rooms sorted out. Rach and I ended up with a quality double bunk with curtains, very comfy. We set sail... well, motored for a few hours out and around some of the islands, we stopped in Blue haven bay and did our first dive, we went down in a group of 4 and saw some cool stuff, to be honest I think the snorkelling would be just as good as we didn't dive much deeper than 7m. There were these huge fish that live in the bay and would swim right up and kiss you, the leader was called precilla and she was going through a sex change at the time.. crazy things. We then headed further south and did some more snorkelling before stopping for the night. Our cook CJ was Canadian and she fed us so well, loads of food and it was all really tasty. The evening was spent drinking cheap wine, playing guitar and chatting. The 2nd day was an early start with us being dropped on the beach around 7:30, we spent a few hours messing on the beach taking stupid photos then headed up to a lookout where you could see this crystal clear bay with little sand islands, it was quite a sight. I'm starting to think we may become beach snobs as we've seen some of the worlds best, Felixstowe just won't be the same. Once back on the boat we headed north and found Mackerel bay where we did our next snorkel / dive. I was minding my own business as this shark swam up from behind me and passed beneath me! It was over 1m and shocked me a bit, they're harmless White tip reef sharks but you are still a little cautious. That evening as we were sitting around waiting for dinner, the under boat lights were on and attracting loads of fish, then a dolphin showed up and started splashin around and chasing the fishicles, it was pretty crazy as he arced out of the water for air then dived back down, they are really agile and the little fishies had to work hard to avoid being eaten. The stars that night were amazing too, with very little land in sight and no clouds the sky was a mass of dense stars, a sight you can't believe until you have seen it yourself. The 3rd and last day we were up early again, this time diving before breakfast, unfortunately the snorkelling was pants and I still haven't swam with a turtle which I am desperate to do! It seems like everyone but me saw them. On return to dry land most of the group met up that evening and had a lil party with some drinking games at a bar. We did our goodbyes but we'll bump in to them again at some point on the trip. Next day was a fabulous bus / ferry up to Magnetic Island.

Agnes Water / 1770

Tue, 09 Jun 09 08:46:37 +0000

We arrived in Agnes just after 6pm and made our way to Beachside Backpackers hostel, it's about 200m from the beach and is a brand new hostel built by some people that own the yuppy resort next door. This hostel is definitely the nicest we've stayed in, we had a double with ensuite and aircon - check us out! Everyone we have spoken to about 1770 said you have to do the Scooteroo tour so we booked ourselves on to that for the next day and settled down for an evening of Scrabble and Masterchef. Next day we took a stroll along the beautiful beach and into Agnes for some food shopping and a lil explore. It was a very little explore as Agnes and 1770 are tiny tiny places consisting of about 10 shops. We got picked up for the Scooteroo tour in the afternoon and it was awesome fun, this old biker dude takes everyone out on mini Harley Davidsons and you cruise around,, going 80km/h on a little bike is exhilerating to say the least! Although I did feel a little fat as we went up hills and my bike was spluttering to do 40. During our drive we stopped at the side of the road to see a load of Kangaroos. We rode up to 1770 and sat at a pub eating wedges as we watched the sun go down. The next day we borrowed some push bikes and headed to 1770, there's a national park atop a cliff and it looks pretty cool, although the journey wasn't far it took us probably over an hour, a mixture of laziness, hot sun and bikes with broken gears slowed us down. When we eventually arrived the view was pretty amazing, you can go out on the cliff and view up and down the coast, Rachel and I jumped off the path and climbed down to this rocky area that would have looked more at home on Mars. There was a little beach there too that we had a short chillax on before heading back, pushing our bikes half the way (apparently that's why they are called push bikes). Our 3rd and final day we spent lazing around on the beach and generally being bummy before a had to catch the overnight coach up to Airlie beach to go sailing. As always the overnight bus was heaving and this time had a lovely aroma of piss and dampness the whole journey, our driver was a yank with an odd sense of humour, such fun!

Fraser Island

Mon, 18 May 09 01:17:17 +0000

Our self drive tour to Fraser island was our next point of call and we headed up the coast to Hervey Bay for a night where you get organized into your groups and go shopping for eveything you need. We stayed at beaches as they organize most of the trip for you. To be able to drive the truck you have to be over 21 and it turned out in our group that there were 3 people able to drive, me, Rach and another girl, Louise, being the man and hating women drivers I voted myself in to be the main driver and we were soon on our way driving. There were 9 of us in our truck, 3 guys, me, Jonny and Harry, then Louise and Rach and 4 Swiss girls. The guys were so funny and we all had a right laugh. The cars we were in were Toyota Land Cruisers all kitted out for off roading with a big roof rack, huge wheels and some fat suspension. There were 2 bench seats in the back for the others to clamber on to. We drove to the 4x4 hire place from our hostel where we packed up everyones bags and our food, tents etc on the roof, we had to watch some safety videos and have some mean looking guy scare us with all the stories of people dieing recently from flipping their trucks on the sand. After being thoroughly scared the 2 groups got our itineraries for the next 3 days and set off for the ferry. We arrived on the island about 10am and it was pissing it down. Fraser island is the largest sand island in the world and the wet tracks leading over the island were an interesting first experience of off roading, I'm pleased to say that in all 3 days I didn't manage to get us stuck once (the other group did) there was one point where everyone had to get out while I floored it at a sand bank and bounced up over some rocks, it was so much fun and I can see why people do it as a hobby. The truck was so top heavy that it's really unstable going along the beach in the soft sand at 60km/h and we had a few fun tail slides as we went along. It was really the inland tracks that were the hardest with huge holes and some big grooves in the road to negotiate, but like I said it was good fun and nobody came back with any bump induced injuries. The first day on the island was pretty miserable and our first stop was a lake 40 minute walk from the beach, we got out and started walking in the rain and half way Rachel decided she wanted to turn back and I was not impressed. The others carried on so we got to see the pictures at least. We carried on up the beach and stopped for lunch on the way, 9 people in the back of a truck trying to make sandwiches is well funny. Further up the beach was the rusting shipwrek of an old army ship that crashed in the 30s, it's a pretty impressive sight to see and we took some cool photos, check them out on Flickr. By the time we made it up to camp the rain had stopped and we were able to put our tents up, there was a bit of a divide forming as the 4 Swiss vegetarian girls did the shopping, went massively over budget and bought stupid food. Some people made a bigger deal of it but it really wasn't that much of a problem and we all got along fine really. The 2nd day we had an early start and were up by 6am, we had a long drive up the beach to our first stop Indian head, a decent spot on the coast to walk up and check out some pretty amazing views of the island and a big drop off a cliff. From there we walked along the beach to Champagne Pools, a series of rock pools that waves crash on and create a giant natural jacuzzi effect, the sun was out and it was a gorgeous place to sun it up a bit and chillax for a while. We drove back to base camp and took a few beers and the frisbee down to the beach to watch the sun go down. You could look in both directions as far as you could see and there was nothing but beach, sea and you, it's a pretty amazing sight. The next day was our last and we were up early again and heading back inland along some extremely bumpy tracks to get to central station, an old logging camp with some nice walks through the forest. We then continued on to lake Mackenzie, now this lake is amazing, totally enclosed by hills with a gorgeous white beach with the softest whitest sand and crystal clear water that was just amazing, I swear this water was clearer than tap water, colder too! We stayed here for a few hours sunning it up before we had to head back and get some lunch, I think we all wanted to stay longer but we had to get back for the ferry, boo! On returning back to the hostel we were all in a big dorm room together and cooked up the leftover food, drank beer and played cards, the 3 days had been amazing but we were all going our seperate ways the next day. So now i'm typing this up as we wait for our bus up to 1770, we're staying up there for 3 nights before we do our sailing tour around the Whitsundays, hopefully the weathe will hold out as some peoplebwe spoke to said there's was ruined by nonstop rain for 3 days. Laters peeps!

Coomera Springs and Noosa

Mon, 18 May 09 01:15:57 +0000

After a short bus ride to Surfers paradise we met Rachels friend Andrea, she took us back to her place in Coomera Springs, she and her family moved out here about a year ago and have settled in really well, her husband Steve is a bigwig at Coles (like Sainsburys) and they have a nice big house with Spa, outdoor pool, 4 bedrooms and the largest ensuite I have ever seen. There 2 kids, Jack and Callum were funny, we went and picked them up from school and they are all Australian. Staying here was a bit of a luxury for us smelly backpackers and we really appreciated the decent shower and quiet bed for the night. We couldn't stay long so next day we were back on the bus and heading for Noosa heads, Noosa is a town on the coast with a load of rivers running through the middle of it, the area is really quiet and small and quite spread out. We booked ourselves into a hostel by the river, got a double room which is nice. We met a couple that night and they were doing a surf lesson the next day. That sounded like a good idea so we booked ourselves in too. $40 for a 2hr lesson is pretty good and it turned out to just be the 4 of us and was good fun, The "instructor" Sarah took us through the basics and hazards and we were out. I managed to catch a few waves but it's a lot harder than it looks, you need a lot of upper body strength to get yourself up and my arms soon began to tyre. I don't think Rachel was too impressed with surfing and halfway through she got up and went and sat on the beach, preferring to sun herself and watch me fall off instead. The next day we went to Australia Zoo which is owned by Steve Irwins family, the zoo was an hour or so away by oach and we had some discount vouchers too and thought it was worth going to as we were yet to see and real Aussie wildlife. The zoo was pretty good, we watched a few feeding shows and visited the "Crocoseum" to watch a crocodile being fed. Crocodiles get ginormous and you would not want to see one any closer, this 5m long thing got out of the water an it was just amazing, there jaws have up to 6000lbs of force which is what they reckon T-Rex would have had, it's mental. There were load of other cool animals about, we strokes Kanaroos and Koala bears but my favourites were probably the Otters that were sisters and did everything together, they were great fun to watch. I found the zoo to be a tad creepy as it's like a big memorial of Steve and his photos and videos are used everywhere, I guess it's all for a good cause though. We didn't do much else in Noosa, just chilled out and lazed on the beach mostly, we watched the sunset over the river one day and had a little walk around some of the yuppier areas

Byron Bay

Mon, 18 May 09 01:11:53 +0000

Arg, that bus journey sucked. 13 hours up from Sydney, luckily we managed to get a few hours sleep. When we arrived in Byron it was like stepping back in time, it's a small town with a hippy surfer vibe to it. There are loads of little shops, only a few chain stores, all the buidlings are 2 story or less, it's nice. We went for a walk and found ourselves a decent hostel called the backpacker inn, it's right on the beach and we managed to get a double bed in a 4 person dorm which is also nice, sharing with 2 Swedish guys. The first day we went for a little walk and got some shopping along with some Mexican fast food (such a good idea). We visited the beach which is just huge, it's golden sands and rolling waves stretch as far as you can see in both directions. That night we got chatting to a guy and he recommended the walk up to the lighthouse, it's about 3km and the weather was nice the next day so we set out, we eventually got to the lighthouse and also visited the most easterly point of Australia whilst we were there (it's very exciting) - then the heavens opened, we were stranded up this cliff in the pouring rain and cold wind with nothing but shorts and tshirts. It was rather funny and so we settled down and waited for the rain to calm, we got talking to the guy that ran the ice cream stand and fortunately he was heading back to town and offered us a lift, we were obviously very grateful, his name was Adam and worked for "In the pink" ice cream shop so well done that man! Next day we thought we would just chill out on the beach and as our hostel had free bodyboards to use we thought we should make the most and have a go, the waves aren't huge but big enough to have a little splash around in, I was surprised how well Rachel managed to get on, only complaining a little bit about getting dunked. In the evening we decided to head to the cinema as the weather wasn't great, we watched "The boat that rocked" as we had been wanting to see it since we heard of the release back in the uk. It was very good and I enjoyed seeing a decent British film. So now we're on the bus heading north to surfers paradise. we are meeting a friend of Rachels who moved out here last year, think we'll just be spending the night there and then moving on again up to Noosa Heads in the morning where hopefully there will be less rain :-)

Sydneylicious

Fri, 08 May 09 07:55:07 +0000

Yup we've finally made it to Australia, we had a short 9 hour flight from Bangkok and arrived in Sydney airport just after 6am. We caught a minibus to a hostel called Wake Up which everyone has recommended to us and got ourselves checked in to a 4 bed dorm room. After a short nap we joined about 30 other people from our hostel on a free walking city tour, this guy Joe took us to all the major sights in Sydney, we ate lunch on the steps of the opera house looking out to the Harbour bridge, it's a pretty cool place here. We also walked around the botanical gardens and saw a load of historical places and facts you're never normally get to hear about. The weather had been alright - around 20c which is good for this time of year but freezing compared to the 35-40 we've been accustomed too. After an earlyish night we were up and ready to do some exploring ourselves. We jumped on a short bus ride to Manly beach (a big surf spot with lots of yuppy apartments) we sat on the beach for a while and watched some very good and some very bad surfers do there stuff, I can't wait to try it myself! That evening we were all over the place, we went to meet a man who was sailing up the coast for 12 days and was taking a load of backpackers with him on his 32ft Yacht, we were going to go but changed our minds after a nights rest, we wanted to spend a while longer exploring Sydney, and being all cramped on a little boat for 2 weeks didn't impress Rachel too much. So after all that we decided to head to Bondi beach the next day, now don't get me wrong it's a very big, very nice beach, but I thought that Manly was nicer. The next day we stayed closer to home and decided to visit the Aquarium on Darling harbour, there were some pretty amazing fishicles in there. Eels coming out of drain pipes all lit up was like a bad dream and the Crocodile was pretty mean looking, the sharks were amazing... You do not wanna be in the water with one of those fellas! We also saw the Gougons, there are only 1000 in the world and 3 of them were in this aquarium, they are the animals thought to have been mistaken for mermaids by the drunken sailors years ago, how they could be mistaken I do not know but it was pretty cool to see them anyway. Next day was the beach walk, we joined a load of people and Joe (from the hostel) for another walky tour type thing, we walked from Coogee beach for a few miles to Bondi, it was really good to start with then poured with rain towards the end and we got completely soaked. We met a nice Scottish couple who had just been in Thailand too. The day after I hunkered down in the hostel and watched films and ate cookies all day, it was raining and Rachel had gone shopping so I just chillaxed. 1st May was Rachels birthday, 22 - so old! We got up late then caught the bus to the Botanical gardens for a picnic on the grass, I had bought tickets for Rachel and I to climb the Sydney Harbour Bridge that evening so we headed over there about 4ish, climbing that bridge was pretty crazy. We had chosen to do the Discovery climb which means you walk between the steelwork with the road visible between your feet, the views of the city from the top are amazing, the city all lit up at night is something you have to see to believe, it's huge! looking into the harbour with the opera house and all the boats is cool stuff. It took about an hour and a half to get to the top, take photos, sing happy birthday to Rachel, then get back down again. So after that we were pretty hungry. We headed to an area called The Rocks and found a nice little Italian restaurant where we sat outside and eat so much food we thought we may not be able to walk home, we had a fair amount of wine to drink too so that may have been the real reason. On our last day I managed to get man flu somehow and woke up feeling pretty shitty, we headed out to another park for another picnic and I got myself a little nap on the grass. We snuck back in to the hostel to cook some dinner and hang about for our bus that left at 9. We have bought a ticket for Greyhound which is like a national express that you can hop on and off or up to 45 days, we're planning on travelling up to Cairns taking about a month to stop at places in between, we have also booked 2nights / 3days camping and 4x4ing around Fraser island then another 2 nights / 3days sailing on a Catamaran around the Whitsunday islands. It cost a bomb but sounds amazing so we're really looking forward to that in a few weeks time.

Last Week In Thailand

Fri, 08 May 09 07:53:41 +0000

So we finished our stay oh Phi Phi and made our way via ferry to Phuket, we had no idea where on Phuket we wanted to go so picked somewhere from the lonely planet guide. We settled on Kata which is one of the quieter bays, it still had it's fair share of Go-Go bars and dodgy markets though. To be frank I wasn't so keen on Phuket, it's a big place and one of the very touristy islands, everywhere was expensive resorts and family restaurants, the traditional Thai places were nonexistent here which I think is a shame as surely that's why people go there on holiday? it kind of opened my eyes to how holiday makers could really get a different experience of the country to the one we have had. However! there were a few perks to Phuket, we got dropped by minibus to Kata bay and started walking to find a hostel when we came across a discreet allyway with a sign for Rico's Bungalows, it looked well expensive but they had a special on for 800baht a night, now whilst this is more than we have paid anywhere else... My word was it nice, we had our own little chalet 3 steps from the private pool, there were only 23 rooms and they all had glass fronts looking into the quad around the pool, this place was so nice that the next day I didn't bother to leave at all, the poolside with comfy leather loungers and all the sun you could ask for was enough for me! We stayed here for 3 nights and on the last night Rachels friend Leigh came to visit, he only arrived in Thailand that day after 2 years in Australia partying. We chatted til late and drank a bit too much. The next day we were up early (to my horror) as we had 2 planes to catch, the first was from Phuket to Bangkok then after a few hours in Bangkok we were on our way to Sydney, Australia - how exciting! It's a real shame to have left Thailand, it's such an amazing country in which I could have stayed forever, fabulous food, great destinations and the nicest people you'll ever meet. I've truly had the best time here, from riding elephants and climbing mountains to scuba diving and partying on the beach we have sooo many brilliant memories to take with us.

Krabbi / Ko Phi Phi

Sun, 19 Apr 09 14:09:28 +0000

After our amazingly fun catamaran trip from Koh Tao to Chumporn (they didn't show the end of high school musical, what happens?) - we jumped on a bus, then another bus, then eventually arrived in Krabbi, we went for a lil walk n found a half decent hostel (we got air con as a treat too) to rest our weary heads for the night. We got washed up and headed for the local night market, it was nice, pretty tourist free as well, I ordered a green curry and the lady asked if I wanted spicy, I said yes and wowsa did I get spicy, definitely the hottest meal i've had in Thailand (possibly ever!) We hadn't really decided which of the islands we would head to first so we had a little read of the bible and decided on Ko Phi Phi, it's a tiny island but with a huge tourist trade, it was one of the worst affected areas by the Tsunami because of it's very skinny shape between 2 mountains. So we headed to P.P in the morning by ferry (boats are quickly beginning to rule our lives) and arrived by lunchtime, we had gotten talking to a girl named Yaneka from Yorkshire on the boat and decided to head for the hostel she and her 2 friends were staying. They were all very nice, a Canadian called Char and a Californian called Lauren, the hostel is a bit ropey, but it is real cheap. That afternoon we went on a boat trip around the islands, we visited the beach from the film "The Beach" as well as doing some snorkeling, seeing some fishies and laughing at the old Swiss guy in Speedos who had picked up a young Thai guy... very very odd. In the evening we all headed out for dinner and a few drinks, went to a bar which doubles as a Thai boxing gym (as you do) and watched some people beat the hell out of each other. On arrival back at the room you would have thought Rachel had seen a body or something, alas it was just a cockroach, she kept tip toeing around looking for bugs for ages, she woke me up in an unnecessary panic 3 times that night! After a few hours sleep we woke up to another gorgeous day on a tropical island, it was so hot by 10am even the locals were stripping off and sweating, but us Brits are made of strong stuff so Rach and I thought it was a good idea to climb to the highest point on the island (only a few thousand steps up to 189m). At the top there was this cool local guy who I got chatting too, he was abnormally interested in our royal family and the F.A cup (don't ask me why). To get down from this highest point is either back the way you come or over the other side of the mountain through the jungle, yes people... for some reason we chose the jungle in 40deg heat, we eventually made it down to this tiny little bay on the opposite side if the island where there was a beach bar to grab some lunch, now at this beach bar I learnt an important lesson about culture, I fancied a cheeseburger right, I know it's cheating and I know better now because what came out was a burger with no meat, just cheese. I guess I'll have to wait for a while before I get a proper burger. Luckily for us the bar owner offered us a cheap lift back to where we were staying using his funky taxi boat, I don't think either of us could have made the walk back without severe pissedoffness.

Koh Tao

Sun, 19 Apr 09 14:04:56 +0000

So I should probably fill you guys in on what we have been doing the last week or so. Well from Chiang Mai we took the overnight train to Bangkok, had a 12 hour wait there with nothing to do, next up was an overnight bus that left at 6pm, we drove all the way south to Chumporn where we got dropped at the side of the road with no indication of what to do (it was now 3am). At 4am a minivan came and took us to some random office where we then waited another hour before getting another bus to a port where we waited another hour for the ferry. It was now 8ish and we were finally on a ferry. The ferry took about 4 hours of pretty rough waters to arrive in Koh Tao, by this point it was midday and we were shattered, basically we had been traveling 3 days with only a few hours sleep.. not so good. We headed to the accommodation we had arranged and to be frank... it was a shithole, we thought it was going to be a bit of luxury so we went and kicked up a fuss and managed to get most of our money back, we stayed the first night there but arranged our open water scuba diving course that day, we went with Ban's dive resort, it's one of the biggest in the world and came with 4 nights free accommodation. There are about 50 dive resorts on Koh Tao, an island 2km long and with 300 native residents, the place is tiny which makes it feel so nice. The room was pretty nice, there's very little air con on the island (electricity is a bit hit and miss too) so we just had a fan, we were right next to a lush pool. And Ban's is right in the middle of Sairee beach which is lovely, full of bars and restaurants, prices were a lot higher than Chiang Mai but still cheap compared to the western world. Our dive course started in the evening of the 2nd day and it was orientation and 2 hours of dodgy videos you have to watch for the exam, we met our instructors and our group was pretty huge, nearly 20 people so that was good. Everyone was really nice and the 3 instructors were great fun. 2nd day of the course and we met up with Cav at breakfast, was crazy to see him, been 5 or 6 months so we had a good catch up over breakfast, he managed to get in on the same course as us which was awesome. We started by setting up all our equipment, doing safety checks then getting in the pool, you start off by doing exercises like buoyancy control and taking off your mask underwater and putting it back on (Rachel proper freaked out anytime we had to do this). You always dive with a buddy so I abandoned Rachel and buddied up with Cav, it worked out for the best as Rach buddied up with one of the dive masters (who she blatantly fancied the pants off) so she got some extra help.. The next day was our first at sea, we got taken out to the dive boat and went to the north of the island to Mango Bay where we did our first open water dive. W went down to about 12m and it was cool, we saw this huge cloud of 1000s of Barracuda, was just like you see on tv in a giant ball above your head. We were all really nervous and concentrating so we probably missed half of the cool fish that day, we did one more dive over at Twin peaks, here we practiced our emergency procedures again (I saved Cavs life) That night was Songkran (Thai new year) naturally there was a huge party and the entire country has a giant water fight, everyone gets soaked and nothing is off limits. The last day we postponed til the afternoon (everyone was far too drunk the night before) we were taken back to Twin peaks where we did an 18m dive, it was cool, we saw Trigger fish, a Nemo fish, rainbow fish, angel fish and loads of other funky looking stuff too. On our last dive we went down with compasses and did a little excercise where we had to swim away then get back, easy stuff but it's a prep for the advanced course. Cav had a bit of an incident and his eye blew up to like half a tennis ball, it happens when you don't equalize your mask and all the air gets sucked from behind your eyeball, he had to be taken to the surface and is ok now, he put glasses on and milked it with the Canadian girls. We had a camera lady with us all that day and we all met up in the bar that night to party and watch the footage back, they were made really well and funny to watch everyone messing about on the sea floor. I was really considering doing the advanced course but we don't have long left and there's so much other stuff we want to do in Thailand, maybe I'll do it another time, but for now Rach and I are both qualified open water divers and can dive anywhere in the world down to 18m. The day after the course we decided to stay one more night and explore some of the island on a moped (hmm) we hired one of these crappy 110cc things with road tyres only to find out as soon as you turned off the main road you were on a sandy dirt track, there were a few interesting moments! We explored where we could and stopped in some nice places on top of mountains for drinks, for dinner we found this private beach with a restaurant built into the cliff over the sea, we watched the sun go down and the stars come out, we were far enough away from town that the sky was just a huge blanket of stars. .. so now we have had to wave goodbye and we're on this high speed Catamaran over to the mainland, they're playing stupid high school musical arg! When we arrive we've got a bus taking us to Krabbi where we'll spend a few days exploring the surrounding islands before we have to head back to stinky Bangkok for the next stage of our journey.

Chef Ross

Wed, 08 Apr 09 05:09:35 +0000

Today we have been to our Thai cooking lesson, the head cook and owner of "The best Thai cooking school" came and picked everyone up, we all squeezed in his van and drove to the premier food market where Permpoon showed us how to pick out the best ingredients. Try at home tip: buy small eggs they are from younger chickens and taste better. We tried a lot of the veg at this Market an they had pink eggs, if you ever cone across these run a mile, they have been slow cooked in the ground for months and look all brown and rotten inside... Not nice! He also showed us the correct way to check a pineapple and garlic and tomatoes an onions and all sorts. We continued out of the city to Permpoons house, within a few minutes we knew this was going to be a fun day, Permpoon was hilarious, such a nice guy, he confirmed to us that he was not shy therefore had many children, haha, he also has a very comfortable sized house with the school out the back. We met a few people we had seen before and lots of new faces. The kitchen setup he had was good, we each had our own little gas stove, chopping board, knife and pans. We started out by going through the basics and he showed us how to make sticky rice (the local delicassy you roll up and dip into sauces). We then made a load of dishes each, they had little pots with all the ingredient in and we just ha to use the ones for the dishes we wanted and follow his lead, he was very well organized and made the day really enjoyable. We made spring rolls and the dipping sauce for them, they were amazing. I also made sweet and sour chicken, Thai green curry, Pad Thai, and Mango and sweet sticky rice. The last activity was cooking with fire where we used a wok to make stir fry and burnt our eyebrows off with 3 foot pan flames, check out the pics and Rachels video, so much fun! We then all got to sit down together and enjoy the dishes we had made. Fantastic day, learnt a lot and filled my belly, what more could I ask for?

Doi Inthanon National Park

Wed, 08 Apr 09 05:07:33 +0000

Today we booked ourselves in to a very touristy tour to Doi Inthanon national park, we got picked up about 8.30 and started out on a 2 hour drive south of Chiang Mai. Our first stop was at the highest point in Thailand, it's about 2500 metres and unfortunately there was little to see as it was quite cloudy. At least we can say we've been there, the temperature that high was about 8 degrees so pretty nippy compared to the 35+ days we've been used to. Next up was a Mong market where there was plenty of freshly grown produce to buy, Rach and I went half on some sliced melon, so refreshing. We grabbed some lunch and got chatting to a nice Chinese couple in the tour with us, they were nice people and kept apologizing for their "bad" English.. Better than my Chinese ;-) So after that we headed to a small village and it was quite uncomfortable, for me at least, I'm sure these guys don't want a load of tourists walking round taking photos of how they live, I'd be right annoyed if someone did that to me. Some of the women were weaving scarves and table cloths, these take a week or more to inish and sell for 250baht (£5) at a market. Rough deal. Next up was a few waterfalls, the last one we visited was pretty hugemongous, must have been a 25 or 30 meter drop, was pretty amezin so I jumped the barriers and went for a little paddle to cool down. On the way back Rachel fell asleep and I have a hilarious photo, I'll try and get it up on flickr soon. Tonight we've just gone to a few bars and enjoyed a few beers with out 100 baht spaghetti bolognese. Chiang mai is preparing itself for the new years festival next week and I think we will both be sad to leave it behind, it's been so nice here, will have to come back, the people and atmosphere is awesome.

Elefall

Wed, 08 Apr 09 05:05:09 +0000

Wow, last night was mental! The thunder storm lasted through to the early hours, the sky was lit up with lighning and loudest cracks of thunder I have ever heard, it was like a bomb going off. We woke about half 7 and blearily made our way outside where we had yet more rice and veg to eat for breakfast, thankfully there was toast and jam so that went down well. We set out about 9.30 and none of us wanted to walk another step, regardless we had to (unless we fancied staying on the mountain). We walked for half an hour and fortunately it was slightly easier (still harder than anything I've ever done before, but easier none the less). Our first stop was at the elephant camp, these beasts are crazy big, we got on to the little seat they put on top and started riding around, it quickly turned out that our elephant, Misuzu, was going to be particularly mischievous and fancied going for a meal, we went a bit off course and after a light snack (a few trees!) we met back with the others, the driver (what do you call an elephant driver) let us get out of the seat and sit on the elephants shoulders with our legs behind its ears as it walked along, it was pretty fun, they're a really odd texture and have long prickly hairs, there's a bit behind their ears that is really soft too - random. Next up was a few more hours of walking through the jungle, our guide Noom almost caught us a snake! At some points we were walking along these little mud walkways about 8 inches wide next to a very big drop down the mountain. You can not understand the relief we all felt when we came in sight of the river and waterfall we were stopping at next, we hopped over 2 small logs over the river and stripped off before jumping in from the top of the water fall, it's only about 4 or 5 metres but it looks a lot higher when you have to jump from it. We managed to persuade Rachel to jump too, check out her blog for a video. It was the best feeling ever to plunge in to that river, cool down and wash all the jungle crap off. After a little waterfall shower and a swim we had yet more trekking, yay, here the group seperated as 2 of the guys were doing a slightly different itinerary. We continued on until we got to a small farm in the middle of nowhere yet it still had running water, electricity and satellite tv! crazy, there were 2 tiny little puppies crawling around playing with baby chicks, it was surreal. I was completely screwed by this point, did not want to go 1 step further and felt pretty sick, I think the lack if sleep and no meat made me feel pretty bad. Luckily this is where our truck was picking is up. We drove for about 40 minutes and arrived at our next activity, white water rafting. The river we were going down was quite small but the rapids were fun, if a little slow, we got stuck a few times and it was pretty good to have all that water to cool down in, after the rapids we jumped onto a bamboo raft that took us further down the river for 15 minutes into some civilisation. As we were going down the river it was so cool, there were monks and children playing in the water and we had a little water fight with the kids. Everyone is alway so happy here, it's amazing. We passed under a few guys building a bamboo bridge over the river, fascinating stuff. This was the end of our little trip and we arrived back at the hostel an hour or 2 later, sooo tired buy we could not go to bed, it was the hostel owners birthday so we all went out for a meal n had some drinks (from a bucket). So that's about it. Laters peeps.

Trekky Trekky

Wed, 08 Apr 09 05:03:07 +0000

We got up early this morning thinking we were infor a gentle trek and some nice scenery, never expecting to have such a crazy day. We got picked up at 9 by our guide Noom, he was born on the mountain we were about to climb. We picked up a few other guys from their hostels, a nice couple from Switzerland and 2 Canadian firefighters, we headed to our first stop, a butterfly farm, that was pretty lame, we then moved on to a local market where they were serving loads of cooked bugs and odd offcuts of pig trachea, intestines etc. Rach and I took the safe option and just got some Oreos. Ha! After a short drive we arrived at 1st base, we started walking and after about 5 minutes were faced with a mountain, the only way was straight up, the guides cut us some bamboo walking poles and it got hotter and hotter and tougher and tougher as the day progressed. We eventually made it to our first stop after 2 hours of gruelling heat and extremely tough terrain, Rachel had to be helped out quite a lot but we were here, a bat cave, unfortunately batman and robin were out but we did see a few of the little critters hanging around. The guides had been collecting plants all day for our dinner and after another 2 hours or so of trekking we got to the village where we would be spending the night. I tell you it was such a relief, mylegs were about to give way and we desperately needed more water. We're staying in a little bamboo hut with about 10 beds side by side on the floor (very cosy). The first thing we wanted was a nice shower and what we found was interesting to say the least, imagine an open bamboo hut with the worst toilet you've ever seen, now imagine a pipe up the wall next to it with a tap that shoots out cold water. The shower was brief but refreshing, we would have washed in anything right then. After a short relax and a cool beer dinner was served, we all sat around a huge table, the food was amezin and there was enough to feed us 4 times over. After dinner the guides and there friends from the village joined us for drinks (one villager got very drunk and was singing to Rachel .. "Baby i loooooove yooouuuu" it was so funny. A few of them played guitar whilst teaching us some puzzle games with matchsticks. Then the thunder storm came, all of a sudden we had a tropical downpore and wind that could blow you over, our clothes and towels we had out to dry scattered everywhere and even the locals said they'd never seen it like this! So now we are tucked up in our beds looking forward to tomorrow when we should be elephant riding, White water rafting and jumping off of waterfalls before returning to the hostel Night!

Massagey

Tue, 31 Mar 09 11:05:23 +0000

It's been a busy day already, we arrived at the station 3 hours late and hopped into a tuk tuk, our hostel was a bit of a shock to begin with, it's like a student house with people and stuff everywhere, as we arrived a group of rather loud girls were leaving and making a right fuss and we wondered what we were walking in to. We got chatting to Hayley and Ryan in the living room and decided we'd all head out for a full body Thai massage they had heard about at a womens prison! After a very long and confusing tuk tuk journey (driver got very lost - twice!) we arrived and oh my god it was amazing, I've never been felt up by a female Thai prisoner before but I sure can recommend it. The little thai lady (about my age) laughed because my body kept cracking so much, I thought I was falling apart when she put me in all these random positions and pulled me about, it was really good, digging elbows in and finding nerves I never knew existed. Lastly she lay behind me and picked me up backwards on top of her with her knees! I swear your body isn't meant to do that, my back was making the oddest noises. Try at home tip: pull your toes (in a pull my finger type way) it feels so odd! After that unique experience we headed to a little local restaurant nearby and the 4 of us had a cooked meal and a drink each for a total of 173baht.. you can live like a king here! We've booked ourselves onto a trek tomorrow and Thursday (camping over night in a forest somewhere) we'll be riding elephants and water rafting as well as lots of scenic walking and what not. Think we'll spend a while chilling at the hostel then head to the night bazaar tonight for a wander and some food.

Training

Tue, 31 Mar 09 11:04:41 +0000

It's nearly 7pm and we have made it on to our train, currently "speeding" our way to Chiang Mai. So far it has been incredibly bumpy and noisy, thankfully the iPod keyboard is really good at guessing what you are trying to say. I really hope it flattens out a bit through the night. We should be on this train for over 14 hours (there's been a delay), luckily we have a nice American guy next to us called Evan. He's a bit of a geek web developer with an ipod touch too so been chatting away to him and drinking a few bevvies. Dinner will be arriving shortly, I'll let you know how (or how not) to eat soup on a bumpy train! ...1 hour later... Ooook then 2 interesting experiences, soup was rubbish so eating it was not neccesary, the majority of the rest found it's way ok. The other was the little squatty loo whilst on a moving train. I now have a new low for toilet hygiene comparison purposes. Our bunks have been set up and Rachel is on the top (I convinced her top was best, muhahaha). They are pretty comfy but the train is still bumpy as anything. I really hope that Rachel doesn't spot the cockroaches before we go to sleep! Tonight will be interesting! ... In the morning... Ok well sleeper trains suck, they should be renamed try and sleep but fail miserably trains. Managed to get 3 or 4 hours sleep but like a half hour at a time. Rachel spotted a cockroach but we were pretty much up by that point anyway, was rather funny and she's paranoid now LOL. On the plus side the view from the window is pretty amazing, heading through large farming plains with mountains in the distance. Banana trees and tiny kids riding mopeds to school. Just been informed we have about 30 minutes left which means we've now been on here 15. Not sure what we are going to do in Chiang Mai today, maybe go temple hunting, will ask at the hostel when we get there to drop our bags off.

So Hot!

Tue, 31 Mar 09 10:27:08 +0000

Today we've walked a marathon and more. We started off by heading to the train station and what looked like a 10 minute walk on the map turned out to take us over an hour. We've booked ourselves a sleeper train up to Chiang Mai tomorrow, they were all sold out of first class so we'll be roughing it, luckily air conditioning is still available - it is so hot here you can not believe. We then caught the underground train up to the north of the city where the largest market takes place every weekend, the scale of this place is amazing, we were totally lost the whole time, dodging in between street vendors and huge shanty areas with low roofs and no ventilation, packed with everything from paintings to cookware to clothes to puppies! After all that rushing around we headed back to the hostel via the sky train. We grabbed a bite to eat this evening at the night market at the end of our road. We went to a real locals "restaurant" where nobody spoke English very well, we were coersced into ordered some pork and rice - the old "waitor" was hilarious, I doubt they get many westerners in there. The food was gorgeous as we have cone to expect, even though the plastic stools were half broken and there were bugs on the table lol. I should point out now that our meal consisting of 2 soups, 2 mains a large beer and a sprite came to 190 baht beat that Tesco! The Thai are fantastic people, everybody is friendly and they are always smiling and laughing, very accompdating to is us backpackers, England would never be like that, they hate the Welsh let alone people from the other side of the world, I don't feel too bad about invading this country as there seems to be a mutual understanding that we will be touristy and they will do there best to sell us as many novelty lighters and laser pens as we can carry. We've now returned back to the air conditioned haven of our hostel, Rachel is typing away about something so check her blog too.

Beginnings

Tue, 31 Mar 09 10:25:55 +0000

We finally landed in Bangkok after our 10 hour flight, it was nothing special but we both managed to get some sleep. I think we were both so nervous about coming away for so long, but once we were at the airport it was obviously the right thing to do. We got a taxi to our hotel without being totally ripped off which was good. Was very sleepy and dehydrated when we got to the hostel so just crashed out for a bit. Room in the hostel is really good, if a bit out of the action. We got talking to a guy in the lobby who had been traveling for 7 months, he offered to show us around a bit so that evening we headed into the Khoasan area (on a tuk tuk - so fun) which is where all the backpackers hang out. We found a little outdoor restaurant and had a decent Thai curry, the 3 of us ate with multiple beers for under 10 - bargain, the night progressed with many more beers which helped us sleep through til 11ish. Next day we caught the sky train and a taxi ride to the grand palace (the largest temple in the area) it was so hot about 2pm I nearly passed out, an ice lolly helped the situation. From there we walked to the river side and haggled ourselves a boat trip around the canal waterways (still think we were ripped off), it's amazing how some people live on wooden huts suspended over the water. We then walked over to the khoasan area we had been before and grabbed ourselves a bite to eat and a few beers. Now back at the hostel and we're ready for bed, think we're heading for a few markets 2moro and to book our train to the north. Night y'all

365Project.org

Thu, 19 Feb 09 22:10:21 +0000

Hi y'all. Sorry I've not posted in a while, I should probably explain why... I've been working my little geeky fingers to the bone getting my new website up and running. http://365project.org is a site where you can upload your own photo each day - like I've been doing for the last 2 years. The idea is to get people to join in with my little fascination with logging life. I thought this project would be a great way for me to get experience marketing and running a real website with real users. Whilst I've been doing this for my job for the last few years, I've never really written my own app. Crazy eh. 365 Project is currently in a beta stage and you can Sign up to 365 Project. Loads of new features coming soon. I'll try and keep you all updated and informed on the sites progress as new features come online.

6 Great British Podcasts

Wed, 21 Jan 09 09:23:03 +0000

From a young age I've been afraid of podcasts, one night I came home and caught a podcast... well it doesn't matter what I caught the podcast doing, it still hurts to think about it. So, I'm not a huge podcast fan, its difficult to find decent content and life is busy enough without having time to listen to someone going on about something incredibly boring for half an hour. However, in my travels I have discovered a few podcasts I listen to regularly, all born and bred in the UK! All of these podcast are available on iTunes.

Answer Me This!

Answer me this is a fantastic infotainment podcast where the 2 presenters, Helen and Olly, (and Martin the sound man) answer listener questions and generally have a laugh, witty English humour ahoy! Very good listen on a thursday. Website or Facebook page.

BBC Radio 4 Friday Night Comedy

This is a fairly recent addition to my list of podcasts and has not disappointed. In there own words: "Bringing you both The Now Show and The News Quiz from BBC Radio 4. Enjoy a satirical take on the week's news with the cream of UK comedy talent." Website

Traces of Nuts

Traces of Nuts is another comedy podcast, however this one takes the form of an audio sketch show. Having read their website I see they have some fairly big names writing and working for them (I thought it was fabulous without ever knowing this). Website

Stephen Fry's Podgrams

I don't think this podcast really needs any more publicity but, it's a decent listen if you're into stalking celebrities. :-p Website

Hosks Half Hour

Now this is a bit of an odd choice, it's some guy ranting about all kinds of random stuff. Not 100% sure if I like it or not, it's odd, but I still listen. Website

Boagworld

Boagworld is one of the biggest podcasts aimed at Web Designers and developers available. Whilst you do have to put up with Mr Boags appalling attempt at being funny, it does provide some insight and interviews with the latest from around the web. Website Any podcasts you guys n gals could recommend would be great to hear about! Leave your suggestions in the comments. Thanks!

Happy 2009!

Thu, 01 Jan 09 20:27:41 +0000

Hello All, A new year and what a treat I have for you today, last night vast quantities of alcohol were consumed and as usual at a new years party the good old Singstar came out and well.. here are the results... Enjoy :-)

Tania Holden

Wed, 31 Dec 08 10:15:43 +0000

Hey, Just a quick update, noticed that people have been searching for a Tania Holden on my website, uh?? So to you guys searching for that... here is an entry, hope you like it! In other news, Christmas came and went, it's new years eve today, I'm laying in bed, tired. Exciting stuff eh! Sorry about this post, I promise I'll try and write something useful next time!

Introducing the "Life Log"

Thu, 18 Dec 08 10:44:08 +0000

Today I am announcing the launch of my 2009 project, the Life Log. After being inspired by Feltron and his annual reports, I have decided that next year will be the first year I track data every day. I'm starting off pretty calm, tracking specific things like food and alcohol consumed and am hopeful that by the end of the year I'll be able to make a cool report on what I've been up to. I've started a month early so I can get into the swing of it, work out what's working and what isn't, also I'd love to hear any suggestions you guys have on things I should track. While I have built my own tracking system, there is a very competent tool over at daytum.com it is currently in BETA but looks to be a funky tool when it gets its full launch. Hope you enjoy!

The Bounce Rate Epidemic

Sat, 06 Dec 08 10:08:35 +0000

So like most bloggers out there in the wilds of the interweb, I have become more and more obsessed with tracking my website statistics, on a daily basis I find myself scrutinising my stats and beating myself up over what I can do to be more popular. One of the most closely watched figures I use is the Bounce Rate.

High Bounce Rate = Low Goal Conversion

Meaning the more people that bounce off your website having visited only 1 page, the less captivating your content is to your visitors, sorry to be blunt, but someone had to tell you. I only discovered a few days ago that my website is not that abnormal, with a bounce rate of about 50% my site appears to be pretty average, if not on the low side! However I still can't understand why this figure is still so high! Half of all the people that come to my website have gone away either not finding what it is they want, or, having found what they want are not interested in anything else I have to say! Now I'm not taking this too personally, but something is wrong. If you had to go to 3 supermarkets before you could find an Apple, you wouldn't be very happy right? So I was wondering, knowing all this, and having "brilliant" search engines on the web nowadays, why is this number still so high?

Possible causes

Poor Search Query
Poor Search Engine
Poor Page Title or Link text
You're All Backwards!

Poor Search Query

So this could be the user at home doing a search that isn't really what they wanted. Searching for "Oranges" when really they mean "Apples". What can we do about this? Well other than giving out common sense pills and reeducating the masses, not a lot.

Poor Search Engine

Yup, I'm going to slag off Google. Google is amazing, I know that, but search engines will have to adapt, with more and more content flying about search engines need to be ranking based on semantics, they need to work out what type of content and in what context your search is being done, so for example "eating apples" there are multiple, very different queries there "how to eat an apple", "pictures of people eating apples", "health benefits of eating apples" etc. etc. More and more of the web is going to be based around these things, and the links out there are already trying to do this, for example links to your friends on Facebook have the tag rel="friend" so computers can understand that that link leads to a friend of yours. Clever stuff eh.

Poor Page Title or Link text

The web is full of exaggerated titles to get your attention, and maybe those articles are getting lots of page clicks, but if the content doesn't doll out what the title suggests, you're brand is going to suffer and people will be less likely to click on you next time. Now I'm not saying "don't use clever titles" what I'm saying is make sure you have the content there to back it up. Typical examples are those videos on YouTube that have semi naked women right in the middle of the video so you click on it, only to find out that it's some anti-war campaign or something. (Not that I click on those videos ;-p)

You're All Backwards!

So I could just be over-reacting, the whole point of the web is to get information as quick as possible and run away giving nothing back, right? Well yes, I imagine websites like Wikipedia have a pretty high bounce rate, but they have built up a reputation for only needing to go to one page, maybe this is a good thing and we should all be striving to get 90+% bounce rates? I keep going back there for more. Lastly I want to ask the question..

How can we effectively measure the level of enjoyment or relevance to the consumer?

If you are a shop or selling something this is a pretty good way of measuring how successful your content has been, if they like the content they'll buy. So there are ways of mimicking this level of feedback in your analytics program, I use Google Analytics and it has a feature where you can set Goals for your visitors and you simply get a Conversion rate. BUT! Yep I have a but... what if you have no goals? I'm a blogger, the only goal I have is to entertain or inform people of the ramblings in my head. How do I track that? Maybe I should start asking for donations ;-) well.. maybe not.

Ranting about work, the government and the postal service.

Wed, 12 Nov 08 23:23:44 +0000

Now before you all have a go.. yes I am well aware of the sometimes ignorant and general stupidity of my words, but alas this is my blog and it should represent me... read on at your peril... -- Start Rant -- So with a week off from work I'm having a lot of time to think about life and the way it should be going for myself, naturally it isn't already going in that direction or I wouldn't be thinking about it. So what I want to do is travel, waste money, drink beer, have loads of stories to tell, meet interesting people, do fun stuff, live life really. Then to the serious stuff. I'll need to fund this somehow, whilst I have plenty of cash laying about to support myself for a while, this is by no means a lasting supply, it will run out... then what? I need a sustainable way to travel and live a life of fun exciting stuff without seeing my bank balance disappear into the red and off the scale into infra-red or something. So how do you make money whilst having fun and not selling your time for money? On this subject I am no expert however I do feel strongly that a person should never sell there life for cash, it seems silly, (I should know, i've done it for long enough) why should I be employed to work for someone, do my graft sell my time that I could be using to surf / ski / drink sangria and generally be young, why should I use that time to put money and new cars into my bosses life? I'll tell you what... I shouldn't, I therefore obviously need to find a way of not doing this, the obvious first step is to become the guy at the top of the food chain myself, does this solve the wider problem however? I've now just moved myself out of the rat-race, what about all those other rats who are now unhappy and working for me? Well to be honest I just don't know, somebody at the end of the day has to be out in the fields picking the grain, or in the office answering the phone to some fat person in another office complaining about product xyz not being this or that. -- Now the rant escalates -- Another thing that annoys me greatly in life is the government, i mean who do they think they are? They take my hard earned money in taxes and turn it into stuff i don't want, yes here in the uk we have this fabulously useful service called the NHS free healthcare for everyone, shame i'm young and healthy and don't need it, it's actually all the old people that use these free services the most, not me, tax them! The NHS is prime example of waste, it's not a private company so nobody sees the need to cut costs or work more productively. There has recently been news articles slagging them off because they do not use technology enough, i mean what century are these people living in? up until recently, and i think they still do... they had paper records, yes records on paper in one specific surgery where all your lifes history was kept, great news if there is a fire. So yeah, the government spends all this money on services that are half arsed and generally not very good. Why do they spend so much money? Because everyone has the government on, it's a well known fact that private companies abuse the government to get huge financial benefits, companies who lay roads and repair local council amenities are the worst. They all put in stupidly high prices so the government is forced to pay up, then they brought in this system where you have to bid "privately" against other companies for the job, this naturally leads to 2 problems, the first being shoddy work, no1 wants that and the 2nd being that the companies just talk to each other, decide who gets the job then all the others price themselves way out of the market so that company wins, still at a great price for them. What can we do about this? How can we stop the government being ripped off and wasting money? Well i recently heard that the government gives free day spa treatments to carers so they can go and treat themselves, my mum is a carer for her dad, she would still care for him whether she got a day-spa treatment every few months or not... why the wasted money here mr prime minister?? -- Turn back for your own safety -- The post office, here goes a proper rant. So a company that has been round for hundreds of years, i can't believe there are less letters and parcels being sent nowadays, the internet is this huge global shopping thing, where people buy products and they get posted to them, these products are big parcels that the postal office has always charged more for, they get delivered to the recipient and all is good. Sorry but how do you fuck that up? well they do. On a few occasions recently i have been so underwhelmed with the services of my post office i've tried to get in contact with the chairman to give him a piece of my mind. The 1st of such incidents, i get a note through the door saying they tried to deliver a parcel and i wasn't in, so i go to the sorting office to pick up my parcel, "oh we cant give you that one, it's not been processed yet" sorry, not been processed? it's a fucking parcel, go behind your little wall, its a box with my name on it, pick it up and give it to me, easy right? wrong! The 2nd thing, i wanted to exchange currency at my local post office branch, great handy service, i want to get £150 worth of euros, now i don't carry £150 in cash around with me, i want to put it on my card, yet at the post office to put currency on your card you need to have photographic proof of id... now i don't have any at the moment as the police haven't given me my drivers license back yet (another long story about our shitty government i wont go into) so i cant get currency exchanged, but then i think, hang on, i can just get cash out from a post office like i can a cashpoint, so i do that, withdraw £150 from them and them use cash to get my currency, FUCKWITS! hello wake up - your. company. policy. is. fucking. stupid. Now the last point on the post office, i recently sold an item on eBay, it's a computer and is worth about £600 i need it traceable online so i go to the royal mails parcel service, parcel force, fill out the forms, print the label, jobs a gooden right? Wrong! i drop the parcel off, i've got an online tracking number, i go to the website, try to find it... nothing, zilch, fuck all, so what's happened to my parcel, has it got lost in the system, or maybe i never posted it? Maybe it's a conspiracy, now what do i do? So i emailed them explained the situation, and got a reply apologising that they didn't come and pick the parcel up! They were never supposed to, the woman that replied to my email had obviously never read it in the first place, another classic example of piss poor customer service... oh... one more point, The post man came to our front door opened the porch just as i opened the inner door and instead of handing me the parcel he threw it on the floor at my feet, then looked up and said, oh, sorry... fucking moron, how dare you throw my parcel that i have paid to be delivered in one piece to my door! AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRGH they annoy me so much! why do we allow these arseholes to carry on? we should demand more from them! How can they be screwing it up so royally?! -- End Rant -- I would also like to point out, I am not an angry person, I'm merely a person who doesn't just "accept" life, life should not be taken for granted and we should not accept the "norm" just because it is has gained that unfortunate title!

A Very French Invasion

Wed, 12 Nov 08 11:34:05 +0000

It's 4:30am... yes, in the morning and I am once again forced to get out of the comfort of bed and haul myself and a giant suitcase to the outskirts of London, yup, another holiday, only the fourth this year! So we jumped onto a very peculiar mode of transport that's set to take us under the sea.. the Eurostar. Having never traveled by international rail before I assumed it was powered by some kind of Voodoo magic, however some people were out to prove me wrong and decided to cut the power lines on the French side of the tunnel and our train was forced to take a 3 hour detour around the French countryside. Being no stranger to France I was unenthusiastically dragged through the spectacle of seeing absolutely nothing from the cabin window. Having driven through almost the entire length of France earlier this year I can assure you there is only 2 things in France, the first being those huge mountainy things at one end and the second of course being Paris. I'd wanted to visit the world capital of Romance ever since I watched the hollywood blockbuster Moulin Rouge a few years back. This place of magic, mystery and most of all love has intrigued me and I was determined to discover its beauty for myself. When we eventually made it to Gare du Nord, and with very little skills remaining in the mother tongue, we did the natural touristy thing.. point and talk loudly to our frog eating cousins. Conveniently for us the nice lady behind the counter played along with our stereotypical British role in the situation and we purchased a 3 day Metro ticket for 19€, while a little pricey it was totally worth it, the Metro is bloomin marvelous, especially when you're used to traveling on the antiquated London Tube. All weekend we found the Metro to be a superbly quick, clean and problem free way of traveling easily around the city. Rachel had booked us into a very nice hotel in the Opera quarter of the city, why they call them quarters when there is about 10 of them I do not know, however the area is bustling with shops and fancy restaurants - we do like our food. Our first official stop was the Eiffel Tower - my oh my - the queues were spectacular, we spent about 2 hours in total before we made it to the top of the tower, and I have to say, it's very tall! The view from the top was crazy, overlooking the entire city you can really see why it's such a popular attraction. One piece of advice, do not eat from the sloppy take-away at the bottom, the sausages, and I use that name very loosely were disgusting, how can anyone eat that stuff? On the second day we headed over to the Musee du Louvre, again, that's pretty huge, built by some crazy French kings it's now home to the Mona Lisa where we went to bask in the glory of the most famous painting in the world. Later that afternoon we took ourselves all the way up the Champs-Élysées to the Arch de Triomphe. Again, like a lot of things in Paris, this is pretty big, and joy of joys, the only way to the top is via spiral staircase. The view from the top at night was fabulous. Overlooking the city and with a clear view of the Eiffel Tower, it was a pretty special moment where many couples were spending precious moments staring into each others eyes. Enough of that nonsense, we headed to a restaurant called Versuvio, looking out onto the busy street we enjoyed a bottle of Rosé and some of the best tasting food ever, and all at a very reasonable price. On the final day of our trip we meandered around the city, Rachel managed to take us to the wrong Notre Dame church in some ghetto area of the city, thanks for that. We did eventually find the famous one and had a little wander around, it's very churchy, those of you who know me well enough will know too well of my dislike for religion. Why are these places of celebration so gloomy? There was a ceremony going on too, all fire and brimstone, worship our god or we will strike you down bitch! Well something like that anyway. All in all we had a fabulous weekend, not sure if I'd go back again just yet, I've seen too much of France recently.

FOWA London 2008

Sat, 11 Oct 08 11:12:18 +0000

Woo, so finally had a chance to blog about FOWA, the last few days have been pretty crazy. FOWA was brilliant, big thanks to all the guys at Carsonified, I'll be there next year for sure! I spent most of my time in the pretty huge developer hall (see the videos here) where there were some pretty big names like Tim Bray and Blaine Cook, along with loads of other Web 2.0 guys. I have to say that out of all the talks that impressed the most were Tim Brays "The fear factor" talking mainly about the global financial crisis and what we should expect in the web app world, along with some real plain good advice for web startups. Francisco Tolmasky (280 North) spoke about Cappuccino and Objective J, that was especially good, giving plenty of techy talk along with some ideology of his own. Bret Taylor from FriendFeed gave a good talk too, I've not used it much but it sounds like they are doing some really impressive work in the background to give just the interesting results from your friends online activity. Mark Zuckerbergs interview towards the end of day 2 was a bit of a let down. Mainly a kissing arse session.. but that was to be expected. Mark spoke a lot about the new Facebook Connect platform, not totally outlawing the possibility of using OpenID and OAuth in the future, but he openly said that there platform was better. While most people there were pretty normal, there a few stereotypical geeks, I thought there might be a riot when a "geek rush" surrounded the stage to get TechCrunch t-shirts, they almost had to batter them away with a stick. I think everyone benefited from having the chance to network with like minded people; there were tons of ideas floating about, not all of them good. Carsonified hosted a few Dragons Den type sessions on stage, where developers got 60 seconds to pitch there ideas and win prizes, most of the ideas were pretty pants, one caught the attention of the dragons, an online strategy game that seemed to be growing immensely fast. Sounds like that guy is going to get very rich. The University (read Expo) part of the show was a bit pants, there were a few big names as you'd expect, I think the £2.5k entry price drove all the small guys away. A great show, everyone that didn't go should definitely go check out the videos on the website.

5 Baby Photography Tips

Mon, 06 Oct 08 17:52:31 +0000

Over the weekend I took some photos of my friends and there new born baby Joshua. It was the first photography "shoot" I'd done outside of my own immediate family, and with the confidence I'd gained from doing plenty of reading on the net, and the knowledge that I can always rescue photos in Photoshop I set out to capture images of this tiny baby forever. The tips below are what I think really helped me out as a first timer, and are therefore aimed at photographers in a similar situation.

1) Be Patient

Babies scream and squirm a lot. Fact. I was at the shoot for a little over 2 hours, and a good 50% of that time was spent crying. Just chill, the parents will be stressed enough without having you breathing down there necks and getting all stroppy. Relax; the baby, the parents and you will perform much better in a calm, quiet environment.

2) Plan the shoot with the parents

Talk to the parents about any particular photos they want to capture and the best time to do the shoot as you'll want the baby at there most placid. Before you arrive make sure you have a good idea of the photos you want to take, search through Flickr or your favourite site and find images that you like. Look at the angles, the poses and the lighting used, this will give you a great starting point to expand and improve upon.

3) It's all about lighting

Babies are soft and smooth skinned, I'm sure that you and the parents will want to capture this. The ideal lighting (in my opionion) would be a soft even light. Obviously this depends on the mood of the photos you want to capture, nothing spoils a nice photo like a harsh shadow across someones face. I have a flash with an umbrella and a few other bits of equipment to achieve this, however a few lights bounced off the ceiling can do a pretty good job too. Check out Strobist for a fantastic resource on all kinds of lighting setups and ideas.

4) Keep it simple

The best baby photos are the ones of the baby, I know this sounds simple but you need to take care to minimise "noise" in photos, you don't want lots of props or a busy background. The simpler the better. I use a black or white bed sheet held up between 2 lighting stands as my backdrops, they're cheap, readily available and come in every colour you can think of.

5) Boost the parents confidence

Give loads of feedback, then give some more. Little bits of advice like "move that arm down a bit", "you're doing great", "that's a really nice shot" will relax your clients and make them feel like they are doing a good job. Don't be afraid to show them the pictures you've just taken, people really like to see what's going on behind the camera too! While I'm sure there are a million other points worth while putting in here, I think these are the points that I needed most. Keep everyone smiling with a positive atmosphere, they'll be happier, there will be better results, and you'll want to do it all over again!

10 Steps to Supportable Web Applications

Tue, 23 Sep 08 10:45:33 +0000

So I've now been developing large scale web applications for a few years now, and I thought i'd share a few points I believe every coder needs to think about. If you're just starting out you wont know why you NEED to do these things, but anybody who has had to re-visit there own or someody elses poor code will soon tell you that it's far better to get it right and scaleable from the start than to have to go over everything and try and change it 6 months down the line. So, in no particular order..

1) Don't rush to start

Think things through before you write it. This goes hand in hand with point 10, if you think something through to begin with and do it right the first time, it'll be easy to expand upon and improve later. If you rush straight in you'll get half way through, get stuck and have to start all over again.

2) Plan to scale the codebase

Many problems in developing applications come from having "organic" code, we've all seen it, code that just grows and grows into a behemoth of unsupportability. All projects, whether big or small need to be factored into well organised, scalable applications, From! The! Start! No silly naming of functions, having a function "set()". It needs to be "set_foo()" at a mimumum so that you can have "set_bar()" as well, having just "set()" is going to get confusing VERY quickly, don't do it! Consider using an MVC like framework, either your own, or a lightweight open source one.

3) Seperate application logic from markup

Now doing this may sound simple, but doing it *well* will inherently move you into a situation where you'll be using an MVC or a templating "engine" like Smarty. This will look much prettier and give you (or a non-techy designer) complete freedom to change your design without touching any code that could potentially break the application.

4) Abstract.. but not too much!

I'm a great fan of abstraction, but only in the right places. Most people soon realise they need to use some sort of database abstraction class, because lets face it, doing large updates on big tables is no fun. BUT, and this is a big one, do not use an abstraction method that can transform across multiple database engines, and the reason is simple, Use the best database for the job to begin with! Why bother supporting all the other options? Seems silly to me. That level of abstraction will only slow down your code and make it less flexible.

5) D.R.Y. - Don't Repeat Yourself

Ah, the classic phrase, now nearly everyone has heard of this funky little acronym, but many (stupid) people still choose to ignore it. By copying and pasting code all over your app you will have a nightmare situation somewhere down the line where you've updated one page but not the other 5 and you'll have data inconsistencies. Not repeating yourself is so easy to do: wrap your logic up into a function and use that function everywhere, then when you need to change it, the changes are made in 1 place, but reflected everywhere consistently.

6) Throw bad code away!

This one is easy, if it's all going wrong, don't try and rescue a bad implementation, just refactor and start again doing it right, you'll appreciate it in the long run.

7) Be consistent, be strict!

If you have two situations where you expect the same behaviour, always have the same behaviour. For example, "set_foo($value)" returns true on success and false on failure, make sure "set_bar($value)" does the same, don't return the new value of bar or an error code on failure. Then all developers will know what to expect and check for. Also be consistent with the order of parameters to a function, the classic example is in PHP where some of the functions take function($needle, $haystack) where others take function($haystack, $needle) choose one, and stick to it!

8) Plan for change

Yes, heaven forbid, your client will change there mind and you'll have to change a feature almost entirely, some simple things that will save you time. - D.R.Y - if you've done that it'll ease alot of your woes. - Abstract the process of actually getting the data, that way hopefully you wont have to change too much logic, just like abstracting your markup form your logic. - Keep summaries of data in relavent database tables, for example in a blog you might store the number of comments to that article in a field along with the post, that way you wont be running loads of subqueries on your dataset when you need to pull out a simple stat.

9) Make authentication, security and filtering easy and flexible

Nobody likes sanitizing user input or checking if someone is logged in. Abstracting this process and making it as easy as possible will ensure that you are more likely to do it every time, meaning less security holes, less code and less problems in the future. Simple functions like my PHP XSS Filtering function can help.

10) K.I.S.S - Keep It Simple Stupid

Another one of my favourite acronyms. This doesn't just mean optimizing code, it means thinking about the most logical way to implement an entire feature. Think about what you need to achieve, then do the minimum amount to implement it. Don't overcomplicate the process, and definetly don't overcomplicate the code. This also goes for functions, don't EVER have a function with more than 3 or 4 parameters, you'll forget what they all do, what order they go and which ones contradict the others. Other things to consider: Some things we can't do anything about, ignorance from developers is a biggy. Often, nasty code will be written because the developer has no concept of how to do something the easy way, they'll make it much harder than neccessary. What can we do about this? Refactor as you go, I don't expect people to go around re-writing whole apps but if you can see a big improvement for no compromise, go and change it, but make sure that YOU fully understand why it was done that way to begin with, otherwise you could be in the wrong. Think about application scale, one day you may have to have thousands of simultaneous users, having robust and fast code from the beginning is your best friend. Don't be afraid to run cron jobs to do difficult processor intensive tasks if you need to, generating statistics and compiling logs of data takes ages, don't put the burden of loading this data into each page load. Instead run a cron, aggregate the data and display that instead. With all things said and done, I understand that for some people in some situations, there will be times where much of this will seem pointless and they'll skip it to save some time, after all, we all have deadlines to hit right; but trust me, following simple, consistent steps from the start will make your life much easier, and we all like an easy life right!

PHP Parser - Filtering Cross Site Scripting (XSS)

Thu, 18 Sep 08 09:56:21 +0000

So the last few days I've been seriously stressing about the implications of XSS (Cross site scripting) in a project that I've been working on. If you don't know what XSS is all about and you're a web developer, you're in trouble, google it. There's also a great website over at http://ha.ckers.org/xss.html that gives you a huge list of many of the known XSS methods. There are a plethora of PHP Classes out there that work on forums and such with a limited subset of XHTML but I need to cover as much as possible, and before people start shouting at me, an approach using BBCode or Textile just isn't possible here. (and it's ugly, don't get me started) Whilst trying to find a decent PHP function to parse out these threats in the simplest manner possible I ended up combining a few to come up with what's below. Download file (strip_xss.txt)

function strip_xss($str, $allowed=null){
	if (!$allowed){
		$allowed = array('','
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','
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','','
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